MICHEL, Paul-Baudouin

Paul-Baudouin MICHEL was born at Haine-St-Pierre in 1930.
After a classical education, complete musical studies at the Royal Conservatory of Mons, and the obtaining of a certificat for music teaching, he stayed for three years at the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel, where he studied composition with Jean Absil. There he obtained in 1962 the diploma of "Graduat of the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel".

He also studied conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and at the Summer Academy in Nice. After having occupied himself actively with "Jeunesses Musicales" and "Musique Vivante" in Mons, he has been director of the Music Academy of Woluwe-St-Lambert during 32 years. There he also teached harmony and music history. He has been professor of composition at the Royal Conservatories of Mons and Brussels.

At the moment, he is professor of analysis at the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel, and since 1997 he is member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. One should also mention his activities as a lecturer on new music.

In only a few years, Paul-Baudouin MIichel obtained numerous prizes, e.g. the Emile Doehaerd prize, awarded by CeBeDeM, and four times the prize of composition for the compulsary work of the second selection of the "Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition - Belgium", for violin in 1967 and 1993, for piano in 1972 and 1991. One should also mention the international radiophonic prize Paul Gilson, the Camille Huysmans prize, two prizes of the Royal Academy, the Ernest Bloch prize, the prize Créamuse and the special prize of the city of Geneva for his chamber-opera bouffa "Orphée abymé" (video).

Until 1963 Paul-Baudouin Michel wrote a number of works which could be designated atonal, yet displaying a firm thematic structure and even a certain melodiousness. After several stays abroad, especially at the Ferienkurse in Darmstadt, where he had the opportunity to meet the important names of new music, and to follow their courses of analysis, he first got interested in serial music, in which the classical forms are clearly abandoned. A simple starting point to arrive at newer structures of music, such as open and mobile forms in which the form, or rather the course changes at each performance, following different procedures for each work, and at the will of the interpreter, who's cooperation is requested. If occasionaly a certain coincidence is tolerated in the superposition of certain musical cells, this doesn't mean that the music is "aleatory". It is rather a kind of musical heuristics.

The interest of the composer is also often focused on the enrichment of the colour of sound, by a diversity of instrumental timbres by means of new ways of producing sound, which accentuates the composer's interest in electro-acoustical music ("The Graal gras" was realized at the Centre de Recherche musicale de Wallonie). Many of his works show a particular care for a renewal of thought and form. His music wishes to be an exact balance between imagination-instinct-sensibility and intellingence-thought-construction.
In spite of his inclination towards investigation or even experience, but considering his pedagogical functions, Paul-Baudouin Michel didn't hesitate to write technically easy or even didactic works: "Piano mon ami", "D'une aventure à l'autre", "Vingt doigts pour un carnaval".

On another level, the composer sometimes looks for a philosophical tenor ("Le Feu et le Monde" on a text of Teilhard de Chardin), a social one ("La Crétinisation"), a psycho-political one (in the opera "Jeanne la Folle", the character is primarely considered as a victim of the 'raison d'état'), or a humanistic one ("Ecce Homo" is based on all Latin words, which can be applied to the human person).

[© CeBeDeM]

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