Classical Music

Every day in March for Women’s History Month CapRadio celebrates Women In Music who brought us to where we are today and the innovators who keep moving music forward. Today's classical spotlight is on French composer Fernande Decruck (1896-1954).

• Fernande Decruck was born in France on Christmas Day 1896. At age 8 she entered the Toulouse Conservatory then at age 22 the Paris Conservatory. Between ages 15 and 26 at these two schools she won many first and second prizes in harmony, music theory, counterpoint, fugue and more.
• At age 26 she began to study organ, at which she became renowned including for improvisation. In 1928 she embarked on a tour of organ concerts in the United States. 
• Having married Maurice Decruck in 1924, a clarinetist and bassist, the couple remained in New York for a number of years where he won successful auditions as a bassist and solo saxophonist with the New York Philharmonic (under Arturo Toscanini).
• By 1933 they were both back in France, though living in different cities as he founded a music publishing house in Paris while she taught in Toulouse. They eventually divorced in 1950.
• In 1942 Fernande resigned her teaching post and for about the next five years devoted herself entirely to composition, proving a prolific composer whose works won mostly positive reviews from critics. She would eventually compose chamber music, ballet, choral works, film music, concertos, and over 40 works for the saxophone.
• In her later years, Decruck's compositions were mainly revisions of her earlier works, and she wrote her final works in 1951.
• Fernande suffered a stroke in 1952 then another in 1954 which she did not survive.
• Unfortunately, like many composers, following her death Decruck’s music fell into oblivion. But today her compositions are increasingly being published and performed.
• Learn more about Fernande Decruck and her music in this recent interview with conductor Matthew Aubin.

Conductor Matthew Aubin says of Decruck's music, "there’s always a surprise in her writing. There’s beauty, melancholy, and at times a maternal quality." 

Listen for Decruck’s music in the 7 and 11am hours, and 2 and 5pm hours, including her Cello Concerto, Harp Concerto, and Sonata in C-Sharp Minor for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra for today’s Midday Masterpiece.