Marcel Delannoy

Marcel-François-Georges Delannoy (9 July 1898 – 14 September 1962) was a French composer and critic. He wrote operas, ballets, orchestral works, vocal and chamber works, and film scores. Life and career Marcel Delannoy was born at La Ferté-Alais, Essonne, France. He initially studied painting and architecture and entered the École des Beaux-Arts, but at age 20 he took up music. Having been mobilised during the First World War, he then worked as an artist. However, he was initially self-taught and never attended a conservatory, but he did receive some encouragement from Arthur Honegger (whose biography he wrote in 1953) and some lessons from Alexis Roland-Manuel and André Gedalge. He made his name with the opera Le Poirier de misère (1927), which attracted favourable commentary from Maurice Ravel, among others. That same year, he was one of ten composers who collaborated on a children’s ballet, L’éventail de Jeanne (contributing the ‘Bourrée’). In 1932, Delannoy was one of five composers approached by the producers of the film Don Quichotte for a series of songs to be sung by its star, the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin. The other composers invited were Ravel, Jacques Ibert, Manuel d