Émile Goué

He taught in so-called "special mathematics" classes (preparation for the Grandes Écoles competitions) and ended his university career in one of the most renowned chairs in higher education, at lycée Louis-le-Grand.

Demonstrating passionate self-denial, he wanted to complete this theoretical teaching and instil in his companions of misfortune a love of music by conducting and commenting on eighteen symphonic concerts whose programs ranged from Franco-Flemish polyphonists to Arthur Honegger.

Both the musicians of the orchestra and the singers of the choir were amateurs, with instruments of very poor quality, but Goué's enthusiasm won them all over.

As with Olivier Messiaen, the war period saw the emergence of masterpieces, revealing an incomparable mastery and artistic maturity: Psalm CXXIII (1942), Prelude, Choral and Fugue (1943), Prehistory (1943), Quintet for piano and strings (1943), Prelude, Aria and Final (1944), Theme and Variations (1945), 3rd String Quartet (1945), etc.

Very weakened, he participated in the jury of the agrégation exams, completed the orchestration of his grandiose Inscription on a stele and died on 10 October 1946 at the university sanatorium of Neufmoutiers-en-Brie.

Following in the footsteps of the Frankish school, opposed to the romantic spirit, Goué had a predilection for Bach and Renaissance musicians.

A composer of his time, Goué perfectly understood the evolution of musical language and developed his own technique, which he called "chromatic simultaneity", a variant of polymodality on the same tonic.

His temperament as a builder concerned with unity made him prefer the use of a single theme generating the whole work, following Bach's example.

Architectural concerns that became more and more imperative in his last opuses (Quintet, 3rd String Quartet, Prelude, Aria and Final...) without stifling lyricism and epic meaning.

[1] An astonishing encounter with Saint Theresa in the pen of the one who had renounced the Catholic religion of his childhood: "I understood that resigning myself to the humble daily tasks puts me in contact with the most essential concerns of Life, and develops in me this gift of generosity that must be cultivated at all costs".

These concerns are in line with our sad actuality: there is some Rouault in this music, exsanguinated faces, surrounded by black, who shout their despair in a burning world.