Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré ( born August 24, 1916 in Monaco, † July 14, 1993 in Castellina in Chianti, Italy) was a French musician and anarchist. Ferré is true in the music world as one of the greatest cabaret singer of the 20th century.
Life
Léo Ferrés father worked as a personnel manager at the princely Kurverwaltung of Monaco, his mother was of Italian origin. As both parents were very religious, he spent his early childhood in the monastic boarding of Bordighera, Italy. This was the same for the then quite free-thinking boy a disaster. Contrary to the expectations of his parents house where you would like to have seen him in the administration in a good position, Ferré was a musician. With his first wife he lived in a small village close to Monaco and farmed a small property. Self-taught, he trained musically and received theory lessons in composition from Leonid Sabaniev, an impoverished Russian emigrants, who had studied in his youth at Alexander Scriabin. Payment was made in the form of kind.
In the spring of 1946, Ferré went to Paris. After several gigs in smaller bars he first gaining popularity as an author, after many singers interpreted his songs. It was followed by the separation from his wife and his marriage to Madeleine, a young woman who brought a daughter into the marriage. A chance meeting with Prince Rainier of Monaco in Paris should be a turning point in his life.
It was followed by the invitation to Monte Carlo, where he Chanson du mal unpopular ones of Apollinaire impressively orchestrated and even aufführte.
Back in Paris, he was able for the first time make recordings. The commercial success did not materialize. In the early 1960s, he succeeded with great performances at the Olympia, the Mecca of songs, together with his friend and engineer Maurice Frot and the blind Paul Castanier on the piano. For fifteen years the three friends and colleagues were inseparable. In 1973 they parted ways. Only shortly before Ferrés death, he met again with Maurice Frot. " Popaul " Castanier died in 1991 at the age of 56 years.
Ferré, many believe to be the French poets of the 20th century, has left a comprehensive work. It includes compositions and performances with the Milan Symphony Orchestra, his settings of Rutebeuf, the French equivalent of Walther von der Vogelweide, and of François Villon, the street poet of the late Middle Ages.