Paul Arma
Paul Arma, actually Imre White House, ( born October 22, 1905 in Budapest, † 28 November 1987 in Paris) was a French composer, ethnomusicologist and pianist of Hungarian descent.
Life
Paul Arma, born Imre White House (some sources give 1904 instead of 1905 as the year of birth), studied from 1921 to 1924 in Budapest at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with Béla Bartók and Antal Molnár. 1924 to 1930 he traveled through Europe as a pianist and - at the invitation of Henry Cowell - by the United States. In 1925/26 he was a member of the Budapest trio. At American universities, he also lectured on contemporary music. In 1931 he moved to Germany, where about friendships with László Moholy -Nagy and Wassily Kandinsky a series of concerts at the Bauhaus in Dessau revealed his musical activities he temporarily thereafter initiated. In Berlin ( there Wizard of Hanns Eisler ), Leipzig, among others He conducted several smaller workers' choruses and orchestra.
After the National Socialist takeover Imre White House was arrested as a Jew and anti-fascists in 1933 by the Gestapo and subjected to a mock execution, his manuscripts were burned. He managed to escape to France, where he settled in Paris, took the name of Paul Arma and 1958, French citizenship. In 1936 he founded the Association Loisirs Musicaux de la Jeunesse and was from 1936 to 1938 a member of the Inter-ministerial Commission des Loisirs de l' Enfance. During the German occupation, he joined the Resistance. Later he worked for the RTF, published 1947 Nouveau Dictionnaire de Musique, held, inter alia, Lectures at the National Phonothèque and taught from 1951 to 1960 at the University of Paris. 1962 Arma was appointed Chevalier des Lettres et des Arts, 1983 Member of the Legion of Honour.
Work
Armas 303 provided with opus numbers works include almost all musical genres with the exception of opera. They show the influence of Bartók and folk elements with which he had dealt in ethnomusicological research. So he recorded in the United States Negro Spirituals, dedicated to the French folk song and the songs of the Resistance. Beginning of the 1930s emerged choirs for the propaganda work of the Communist Party, and later in France for that of the French Communists. In 1938 he composed his first film score, the others followed. Open to contemporary trends and experiments - as early as 1930 a work for clarinet, Trautonium or Thereminvox had arisen - he wrote in the mid- 1950s and electronic music. 74 scores Armas, who kept himself close relationship with the visual arts and created his own sculptural works were illustrated with specially created cover pages of friendly painters such as Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall.