Person
Hoérée, Arthur (1897-1986)
Saint-Gilles (Bruselas, Bélgica) 1897-04-16 - Paris 1986-03-03
Belgian composer, musicologist, critic and engineer.
Born on 16 April 1897 in Saint-Gilles (Belgium), and passed away on 3 March 1986 in Paris. He was the grandson of Jacobus Hoérée, choirmaster at St Walburge, Belgium. He studied organ and music theory at the Conservatoire Royal de Brusselles (1908-1912) and continued his education at the Institut Musical in Anderlecht (1914-1916). After graduating from the École polytechnique de Bruxelles with an engineering degree, in 1919 he moved to Paris for further musical training under Paul Vidal, Vincent d'Indy, Joseph Baggers, Eugène Gigout and Albert Roussel. His book "Albert Roussel" (1938) and the composition "Fanfare" (1928) are both dedicated to the latter. He won the Halphen Prize in 1922 for "Heures claires", and married Régine Lormoy, the soprano who sang it. That same year he began writing for "Revue Musicale", "Comoedia", "Le mois" and "Radio-Magazine".
In 1923 Hoérée won the Lepaulle Prize for "Pastorale et danse", which premiered in Brussels and which he conducted in 1926 at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Zurich. In 1928, when the Falla Festival was held in Paris, he wrote a review of "La vida breve", and one year later he received a letter from Manuel de Falla. He worked for the French radio after 1929, although he remained active as a piano accompanist, conductor and lecturer. In 1934, he became involved in the film industry, collaborating with Arthur Honegger until 1952. Known for his ability to handle and process sound, he participated in films such as "Rapt" (1934), "Passeurs d'hommes" (1937), "Les musiciens du ciel" (1939), "À la belle frégate" (1942) or "Les démons de l'aube" (1946). He was also a film technician, editor at the Paramount studios in Saint-Maurice and cinema critic from 1936 to 1946. He joined the faculty of the École Normale de Musique in 1950, taught artistic culture at the Radio France Centre de Formation Professionnelle from 1958 to 1968, and worked at the Institut de Musicologie of the Sorbonne from 1972 to 1980.