What is Albert Roussel?
[[File:Roussel Albert 1913.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Albert Roussel]] '''Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel''' (5 April 1869 - 23 August 1937) was a [[French people|French]] [[composer]]. Roussel spent seven years as a [[midshipman]]. He only turned to [[music]] as an adult. But he then became one of the most important composers of the years between the two world wars. His earlier music came from the [[Impressionist music|impressionism]] of [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]] and [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]]. He turned more towards [[Neoclassicism music|neoclassicism]] with his later music. ==Personal life== [[File:Albert Roussel.jpg|210px|Bust of Roussel in Paris|right]] Albert Roussel was born in [[Tourcoing]] (''Nord'' [[département in France|''department'']] of [[France]]). HIs earliest interest was not music. It was [[mathematics]]. He spent some time in the French Navy. In 1889 and 1890 he served on the crew of the [[frigate]] ''Iphigénie''. These travels were significant to his later career as a composer. This is because many of his musical works would reflect his interest in far-off and interesting places. After Roussel left the Navy in 1894, he began to study music with [[Eugène Gigout]]. He continued his studies until 1908 at the [[Schola Cantorum]] (one of his teachers there was [[Vincent d'Indy]]). While he studied, he would also teach at the Schola. His fellow students were [[Erik Satie]] and the young [[Edgard Varèse]]. During [[World War I]], he served as an [[ambulance]] driver on the Western Front. After the war, he bought a [[summer]] [[house]] in [[Normandy]]. This is where he gave most of his time to composing music. Roussel was a [[classicism|classicist]]. Some of his first works are very much like impressionism. But he soon found a style fit just for him. This style had a strong rhythmic sound. The Schola Cantorum left a mark on Roussel's mature writing. Compared with the style of other French composers like [[Gabriel Fauré]] or [[Claude Debussy]], Roussel's [[orchestration]] is rather powerful and heavy.