Stéphane DELPLACE, composer

L’Odieuse Fugue (for accordion and string quintet)
a piece freely inspired by Beethoven’s Symphony n° 9

« Félicien Brut’s invitation to participate in NEUF seduced me since I have already superimposed in the past the theme of the finale of the first Brahms Symphony to Ode à la Joie from Beethoven, he gave me the opportunity to write a fugue which would integrate this “choral”. Now it turns out that by working on it, I reconstituted that the theme of the 9th Great Symphony in Ut by Schubert could at the same time settle all up there. It was then missing only the name of B.A.C.H. to come and interfere in this quadruple superposition. The ensemble, appearing on a pedal bass, with an additional tenor voice, dictated the 6 voices for the fugue exhibition. The subject borrows the interrogative end of the first sentence of the theme, so legendary that this simple fragment already evokes it. The accordion then encouraged me to distort the metric to pull it towards the waltz, among other adventures … »

Stéphane Delplace

Stéphane Delplace in a few lines…

French composer, Stéphane Delplace was born in Bordeaux in 1953, he began playing the piano very early and continued to learn it with Pierre Sancan. He then devoted himself to writing and did his “humanities” at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, studying the organ at the same time.

Writing tonal music was obvious from the start, which he never gave up, convinced that it concealed an infinity of unexplored regions. This determination naturally kept him away from the official circles of Contemporary Music and it was not until 2000, at the invitation of Jean-François Zygel, that he joined the Phoenix band. His music has its roots in particular with Bach, Brahms, Ravel, Fauré, Prokofiev… While having approached multiple formations, from the orchestra to the choir (Tombeau de Ravel, Roque… the oratorio Le Plafond de la Chapelle Sixtine) also throught chamber music (Quintette à deux violoncelles, Quintette avec piano, Quatuor à cordes, Trio, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, Sonate pour violoncelle et piano, Suite pour violon seul, Suite pour violoncelle seul… L’Odieuse Fugue) and the organ (Chacone, Non-Toccata et fugue, Pièces d’orgue…), he devotes most of his production to the piano (three books of Préludes & Fugues dans les Trente Tonalités, two books of Quatorze Klaviestücke, two Concertos pour piano, Fugue selon Fugue, Chronogénèse, Sonate (written for the Opus 102 by Stephen Paulello), Douze Études, Crepuscolo…).

From 2008, he began to perform some of his piano works himself in concert. His music is performed mainly in France, but also more widely in Europe, China and the United States…

In 2001, the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris awarded him the Florent Schmitt Prize.

He is a writing teacher at the Conservatoire Debussy and the Conservatoire Jean-Philippe Rameau in Paris, as well as at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Schola Cantorum. It is published by Editions Durand, Eschig, Billaudot and Delatour.