Maurice Journeau and Spain

Maurice Journeau was born in 1898 in Biarritz, a seaside resort of the french Basque country. His native town was thus very near the spanish Basque country, allowing the composer's family to go there very easily. Moreover his parents had to reside in San Sebastiàn, another smart seaside resort but situated in the spanish Basque country, during several years from 1903 to 1907. This accounts for his early practice of the spanish language, at school and anywhere else. A language he still used later with much easiness, like English and German.

After this spanish period his family came back to Biarritz. This allowed the young Maurice to study the piano with the lady organist of Sainte-Eugénie's church, Miss Paris, a professor much esteemed by the families of the town. And also to hear many very good music concerts, making him eager to write his own personal music.

So, Biarritz became the place where he wrote a few very small adolescent attempts, and then his first real works after the first World War and thanks to his studies of composition at the "Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris"(an Upper private french conservatory). He composed already important works such as his "Valse" op.2 for piano, his "Matin" op.3 for orchestra, his first two sonatinas for piano, the romantic "Sonate pour piano et violon" op.6, the Piano Trio op.7, and also his "Nuits basques" op.9 for violin and piano owed to his deep love for his native land.

Maurice Journeau never wanted to have a professional musical career. He only wanted to compose music and being totally free, it was the joy of all his life. So he remained unknown as an independent composer outside the musical world.

His music is considered abroad as a genuine french music, a very typical and personal one. But the childhood period always leaves its marks on all of us, Maurice Journeau included...with the two Basque countries, the french and the spanish ones. In Biarritz, according to him, his youthful days bathed in a certain ambiant time, very strong in the Basque country impregnated with Maurice Ravel's works. This atmosphere, according to him, had influenced a little on his first works at the beginning, but he had quickly wanted to have his own path. Yet, until his death on June 1999 he always was respectful and greatly admired Ravel (who was 23 years older than him and whom he never met), considering that he was "the greatest" of all composers.

Each of them had been influenced by Spain and the Basque country, Maurice Ravel through his mother, Maurice Journeau by his childhood in Spain and the fact that he lived after not far from it. We feel the spanish influence on the second "Nuit basque", the "nuit d'automne" with its vivacious style evoking Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Ciboure, two places he loved much. We still feel the basque influence in his impressive "Passacaille" (a word from "passa calle") for orchestra, composed in 1958, a work where the basque tambourine is imposing on the popular street march seen by him in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a memory recalled in Paris. And we even may notice that, during the period of Nice on the french Riviera, there is something vivacious, nearly spanish, with the violin evoking the lovely village of Sospel in November 1935.

The Basque country, both french and spanish, the french Riviera with Nice, the eighth district of Paris finally were places where various influences, unforeseen meetings, subjacent memories, family love are underlying Maurice Journeau's works. And how, at first glance of a manuscript, the artists guess the genuine being of the authors...That's fascinating !

(Chantal Virlet, June 1st, 2025)