Emmanuel Maurice. Sonatine no. 4 pour piano

Paris: Durand & Cie., 1923. — 19 p.En divers modes hindous
Fourth Sonatina (op. 20) is the celebrated ‘Sonatina on Hindu modes’, and this very bold and innovative score bears a worthy dedication to the great pioneer Ferruccio Busoni. For sure, Emmanuel was not the first to interest himself in the modal system of India and to incorporate it into his music. In France he had been preceded notably by Albert Roussel, following his journey in 1908, from which he brought back first Les Évocations, then his opera-ballet Padmâvati, completed in 1918 though not given its first performance until 1923. In England, Gustav Holst had used these same scales in his vocal and choral cycles on the sacred texts of the Rig Veda and in his chamber opera Savitri, all this before 1914. In parallel, an error should be corrected that concerns Olivier Messiaen, who was a pupil of Maurice Emmanuel, a fact that greatly contributed to his becoming a modal composer. In his own music Messiaen in fact used Indian rhythms not modes.