(1861-1949)
Pierre Onfroy de Breville was born on 21 February 1861 at Bar-le-Duc, 240 km east of Paris, into a family of the French gentry. The family had no history of musical talent, although Pierre's paternal grandmother was a keen artist and his older brother Jacques became a well-known illustrator.
Not unusually for someone of his family background, Pierre was intended initially for a diplomatic career and, accordingly, studied law at university, graduating in 1882. But his childhood passion for music was not to be denied. Before he had graduated from his legal studies two important developments had occurred which were to have far-reaching consequences for his subsequent musical career. In 1880, at the encouragement of composer Vincent d'Indy, whom he had recently befriended, he became a member of the Societe Nationale de Musique (SNM), a body formed in 1871 by Saint-Saens, initially to promote French music. During its long history the society oversaw the premieres of many masterpieces of French chamber music. Pierre de Breville was to be involved with the SNM in various capacities for much of his life.
The second development was Pierre's entry in 1881 into formal music education. In that year he joined the harmony class of Theodore Dubois, at the Paris Conservatoire. However, this proved to be an unsatisfactory move, and in 1882, abandoning his intended diplomatic career, he became a pupil of Cesar Franck.
The year 1882 also saw de Breville's first pilgrimage to Bayreuth to hear the music of Wagner, of which he was already a passionate devotee. There were to be many more such trips. Indeed, de Breville retained a life-long enthusiasm for Wagner (and for travel). In his own music, however, he managed to avoid the wholesale Wagnerian influence that affected so many of his compatriots. On the completion of his studies with Franck, in 1886, de Breville made his only attempt at the annual Prix de Rome corn-petition, without success. (Many of France's leading composers, most famously Berlioz and Ravel, had poor luck with this competition).
With his formal musical studies over, Pierre de Breville undertook a range of musical activities. At different periods of his life he occupied himself variously in musical journalism, transcribing and arranging, playing the organ in a Paris church, and teaching. Though he applied himself conscientiously to all these occupations, the American scholar Mimi S. Daitz suggests that none of them was financially necessary for him, owing to his family's wealth.
De Breville's two main teaching appointments were first at the Schola Cantorum and later, on the invitation of Gabriel Faure, at the Paris Conservatoire. At the Schola Cantorum, where he taught counterpoint from 1898 to 1902, one of his pupils was the composer and writer Gustave Samazeuilh, who was later to compose a work for Segovia. De Breville's successor as counterpoint teacher was Albert Roussel, another composer of a piece for Segovia. During de Breville's second period as a teacher, at the Paris Conservatoire in the First World War, one of his most distinguished pupils was the pianist Vlado Perlemuter, who later recalled him as an effective though unorthodox teacher and a generous helper to students in financial difficulties.
Composition, however, was a constant thread in de Breville's life. He composed over 150 vocal works and 40 instrumental pieces, his first published works appearing in 1888 and his last being composed just a couple of years before his death. Some of his songs achieved considerable popularity in his lifetime, and the best of them, according to Mimi S. Daitz, are not shamed by the works of Faure, Ravel, and Duparc. De Breville himself set considerable store by his opera Eros Vainqueur, completed in 1905, and first performed in Brussels in 1910 to a favourable reception, despite a weak libretto.
The SNM formed another constant thread in de Breville's life. During Vincent d'Indy's long tenure as president of the society, from 1890 to 1931, de Breville did much behind-the-scenes work, and indeed for a period from 1890 was secretary to the society. On the death of the composer Gabriel Pierne, in 1937, de Breville assumed the presidency of the society. (This year, coincidentally, also saw Joaquin Rodrigo enrolled as a member.) However, de Breville's reign as president was destined to be short. In 1939, he tendered his resignation following a general meeting at which changes to the society's constitution were proposed and accepted, against his wishes. A prime mover behind these changes, which were designed to ensure that new music had more advocacy on the committee, was Henri Martelli, himself the composer of a fine, recently found guitar work for Segovia.
Following his resignation from the SNM, de Breville continued to compose, but an accident in 1947 severely curtailed his activities. His death on 23 September 1949 is believed to have been the result of a heart attack. He was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery. During his long life he had been a well-liked figure on the French musical scene, and counted many of his country's leading composers and musicians (and writers) among his friends. (Allan Clive Jones, Classical Guitar Magazine, January 1992)