French writer (1886?1958)
A portrait of
Henri Emile Hermand Malherbe
Henri Emile Hermand Malherbe
, also known as
Henry Malherbe
or
Henry Croisilles
(4 February 1886
[1]
[n 1]
– 17 March 1958) was a French writer.
[2]
Life and career
[
edit
]
Malherbe was born in Bucharest.
[1]
In Paris he wrote for
Le Temps
,
[3]
the magazine
Excelsior
,
[4]
and later for
La Revue des vivants
, ("organe de la generation de la guerre"), of which he was co-director with
Henry de Jouvenel
.
[5]
Malherbe fought in the
First World War
. In 1919 he was a co-founder and first president of the
Association des ecrivains combattants
[
fr
]
.
[n 2]
In 1953 the association established the
Henry Malherbe Prize
for essays in his honour.
[2]
In 1917 Malherbe won the
Prix Goncourt
for the novel
La flamme au poing
,
[2]
(literally, "The Flame in the Fist", published in English translation in 1918 as
The Flame that is France
).
[7]
In 1918 the reviewer in the magazine
North American Review
wrote:
In
The Flame That Is France
we have to do with the work of a poet. That M. Malherbe writes in prose does not, of course, alter this fact. His musings over deep things, his fragmentary, intense picturings of action or character, have the meaning of poetry and are expressed in its language. … for his accounts of agony, grief, death, the grappling of the mind with horror ? he finds words of bare simplicity. But always in the intensity, the impassioned calmness, of his realizations he is a poet.
[8]
Music
[
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]
Malherbe took a particular interest in musical matters. His interview with
Claude Debussy
in 1911 is quoted extensively by the composer's biographer
Leon Vallas
;
[9]
his criticisms of the
Conservatoire de Paris
for what he saw as its reactionary agenda and declining standards were reported in Britain and the US, in
The Times
and by
Richard Aldrich
, music critic of
The New York Times
.
[10]
As a critic, Malherbe was less inclined than some of his colleagues to take new works at face value: he spotted, as many other critics did not, what he called "the heated eroticism" that lay below the seemingly "innocent neoclassical surface" of
Francis Poulenc
's 1924 ballet
Les biches
.
[11]
In his book about
Bizet
's
Carmen
, published in 1951, Malherbe offered what the journal
Hommes et mondes
called an analysis "of rare lucidity" of the origins, libretto and score of the opera, and presented hitherto unpublished information about the circumstances of the composer's early death; in this Malherbe raised the possibility that unhappy in love and in despair at "the conspiracy of critics who had condemned Carmen", Bizet may not have died of illness but had killed himself.
[12]
Malherbe's other books on music attracted some adverse comment from his contemporaries for his propensity to speculate about his subjects. His biography of
Schubert
(1949) was criticised in
Music & Letters
for "sketches circumstantially describing scenes for which we have not a shred of evidence. … M. Malherbe allows himself again and again to be carried away by his enthusiasm into writing bookstall fiction."
[13]
His 1938
Richard Wagner revolutionnaire
also suffered from some "rather fictitious" biography, according to the
Revue De Musicologie
.
[14]
Later years
[
edit
]
Malherbes was appointed a
Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur
in April 1953.
[2]
He died in Paris in 1958, at the age of 72.
[1]
Works
[
edit
]
- Paul Hervieu
E. Sansot & cie, 1912
- La Flamme au poing
. A. Michel. 1917.
Henry Malherbe.
- Le Jugement dernier
, Editions de la Sirene, 1920
- La Rocque : un chef, des actes, des idees, suivi de documents sur les doctrines de la renovation nationale
Librairie Plon, 1934
- La passion de la Malibran
, A. Michel, 1937
- Richard Wagner revolutionnaire
A. Michel, 1938
- Aux Etats-Unis, printemps du monde
, A. Michel, 1945
- Franz Schubert, son amour, ses amities
, A. Michel, 1949
- Carmen
Michel, 1951
English Translations
[
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]
Notes, references and sources
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
"Henry Malherbe (1886?1958)"
Archived
2015-07-25 at the
Wayback Machine
, Bibliotheque nationale de France, retrieved 19 June 2018
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Les prix litteraires"
Archived
2018-04-06 at the
Wayback Machine
, Association des Ecrivains Combattants, retrieved 19 June 2018 (in French)
- ^
Blake, p. 82
- ^
Vallas, p. 224
- ^
La Revue des vivants
Archived
2018-06-19 at the
Wayback Machine
, February 1927, page 1
- ^
"Bienvenue sur le site de l'A.E.C."
Archived
2018-03-29 at the
Wayback Machine
, Association des Ecrivains Combattants, retrieved 19 June 2018 (in French)
- ^
"The Flame that is France"
Archived
2018-06-19 at the
Wayback Machine
, WorldCat, retrieved 19 June 2018
- ^
"
The Flame that is France
by Henry Malherbe"
Archived
2018-06-19 at the
Wayback Machine
,
North American Review
, vol. 208, no. 755, 1918, pp. 618?620
(subscription required)
- ^
Vallas, pp. 224?226
- ^
Young Musicians,
The Times
, 4 August 1928, p. 10
- ^
Malherbe, Henry.
Chronique musicale
? "Les spectatrices ecoutent l'ouvrage, dont la forme neo-classique enveloppe finement le vif erotisme",
quoted
in Christopher Moore.
"Camp in Francis Poulenc's Early Ballets"
Archived
2018-06-19 at the
Wayback Machine
,
The Musical Quarterly
, Vol. 95, No. 2/3 (Summer-Fall 2012), p. 319
(subscription required)
- ^
"B. S."
"
Carmen
by Henry Malherbe"
Archived
2018-06-19 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Hommes et mondes
, July 1951, p. 311 (in French)
(subscription required)
- ^
"E. B."
"
Franz Schubert: son amour, ses amities
by Henry Malherbe"
Archived
2018-06-19 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Music & Letters
, vol. 30, no. 4, 1949, p. 390
(subscription required)
- ^
"J.-G. P."
"
Wagner revolutionnaire
by Henry Malherbe"
,
Revue De Musicologie
, vol. 21, no. 1, 1942, pp. 12?13 (in French)
(subscription required)
Sources
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1903?1925
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1926?1950
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1951?1975
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1976?2000
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2001?present
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