What is Maurice Duruflé?
[[Image:Maurice Duruflé.gif|right|thumb|Maurice Duruflé, c.1962]] '''Maurice Duruflé''' (born Louviers, 11 January 1902; died Louveciennes, 16 June 1986) was a [[France|French]] [[composer]] and [[pipe organ|organist]]. He was very self-critical and destroyed any of his compositions that he thought were not really good. This is why we now only have a small number of his works. He wrote [[choral]] music and music for the [[pipe organ|organ]]. His most famous work is his ''Requiem''. == Life == Duruflé was born in [[Louviers]], [[Haute-Normandie]]. In 1912, he joined the [[choir]] of [[Rouen Cathedral]] where he studied [[piano]] and organ. When he was 17 he went to [[Paris]] and had private organ lessons with [[Charles Tournemire]]. He became Tournemire’s assistant at the [[Basilique Ste-Clotilde, Paris]] until 1927. In 1920 Duruflé went to study at the [[Conservatoire de Paris]]. His organ teacher was [[Eugène Gigout]]. When he [[degree (academic)|graduate]]d he got first prizes in organ, [[harmony]], [[accompaniment (music)|piano accompaniment]], and [[Composition (music)|composition]]. In 1929, Duruflé became organist at St. Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, a job he kept for the rest of his life. In 1939, he gave the first performance of [[Francis Poulenc]]'s Organ Concerto. In 1943, he became professor of harmony at the [[Conservatoire de Paris]], where he worked until 1970. In 1947, Duruflé wrote his famous ''Requiem'' op. 9, for soloists, choir, organ and orchestra. In the same year Marie-Madeleine Chevalier became his assistant organist at St-Étienne-du-Mont. They [[marriage|married]] in 1953 after Duruflé [[divorce]]d his first wife. The couple often travelled together to give organ [[recital]]s together. They always spent many hours practising on the organs on which they had to perform, often practising a lot of the time without the sound so that their fingers were really used to the feel of the organ.<ref>Roger Fisher: “Marie-Madeleine Duruflé: A Reminiscence” in Organists’ Review vol LXXXVI, Feb 2000