Early years Chabrier was born in
Ambert, (
Puy-de-Dôme), a town in the
Auvergne region of central France. He was the only son of a lawyer, Jean Chabrier, and his wife, Marie-Anne-Evelina,
née Durosay or Durozay. The Chabriers were of old Auvergne stock, originally of peasant origin (the surname comes from "chevrier" – goat-herd), but in recent generations merchants and lawyers had predominated in the family. A key member of the household was the boy's nanny Anne Delayre (whom he called "Nanine" and "Nanon"), who remained close to him throughout her life. He moved the family to Paris in 1856, so that Chabrier could enrol at the
Lycée Saint-Louis. After graduating from the law school in 1861 he joined the French civil service at the
Ministry of the Interior, where he worked for nineteen years. In a study of the composer published in 1935
Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme commented that it would be wrong to class Chabrier as merely an amateur in this period: "For, while in quest of the technique of his art, he displayed a curiosity in the painting and literature of the 'modernists' of his day that, among musicians, had few parallels." From 1862 Chabrier was among the circle of the
Parnassians in Paris. Among his friends were
Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and
Paul Verlaine; with the latter he planned a comic opera in the fashionable style of
Offenbach,
Vaucochard et fils Ier. He did not complete it, but four fragments (dating from about 1864 or 1865) have survived. His full-time official post severely restricted Chabrier's ability to compose large-scale works. He began an opera on a
Hungarian historical theme entitled
Jean Hunyade, to a libretto by
Henry Fouquier, but abandoned it, after completing four numbers, in 1867. Another attempt at operatic comedy,
Fisch-Ton-Kan, with Verlaine and Lucien Viotti, was performed in March 1875 at the same club with Chabrier at the piano; five fragments survive. (1873) There are several descriptions of Chabrier's piano-playing at around this time; many years later the composer
Vincent d'Indy wrote, "Though his arms were too short, his fingers too thick and his whole manner somewhat clumsy, he managed to achieve a degree of finesse and a command of expression that very few pianists – with the exception of
Liszt and
Rubinstein – have surpassed." The composer and critic
Alfred Bruneau said of Chabrier, "he played the piano as no one has ever played it before, or ever will…" The wife of the painter
Renoir, a friend of the composer, wrote: Both Chabrier's parents died within the space of eight days in 1869. During the
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and
Commune, he continued in his official post as the ministry moved from
Tours to
Bordeaux then to
Versailles. In 1873 he married Marie Alice Dejean, the granddaughter of Louis Dejean, who had gained his fortune as founder and manager of the
Cirque d'été and the
Cirque Napoléon. Alice and Chabrier had three sons, one of whom died at birth. Chabrier's friends in Paris included the composers
Gabriel Fauré,
Ernest Chausson, and Vincent d'Indy; painters including
Henri Fantin-Latour,
Edgar Degas and
Édouard Manet, whose Thursday soirées Chabrier attended; and writers such as
Émile Zola,
Alphonse Daudet,
Jean Moréas,
Jean Richepin and
Stéphane Mallarmé. During the 1870s Chabrier began several stage works. The first to be completed was a three-act opéra-bouffe ''
L'étoile'' (The Star), commissioned by the
Bouffes-Parisiens, the spiritual home of Offenbach. He secured the commission through his many contacts in the world of arts and letters: he had met the librettists,
Albert Vanloo and
Eugène Leterrier through the painter Alphonse Hirsch, whom he had got to know as a member of Manet's set. The opera was modestly successful, running for 48 performances in 1877, but was not revived in his lifetime. Nonetheless, it brought him to the attention of the press and attracted the publishing firm Enoch & Costallat, who published his works during the rest of his life. The same year Saint-Saens gave the first public performance of his 1865 Impromptu, his first piano piece of real importance with his personal stamp of originality.
Full-time composer ,
Ordrupgaard Museum, Denmark Like many progressively-minded French composers of the time, Chabrier was greatly interested in the music of
Wagner. As a young man he had copied out the full score of
Tannhäuser to gain an insight into the composer's creative process. D'Indy, who was among the group, recorded that Chabrier was moved to tears at hearing the music, saying of the prelude, "I have waited ten years of my life to hear that A in the cellos". This event led Chabrier to conclude that he must single-mindedly pursue his vocation as a composer, and after several periods of absence he left the Ministry of the Interior in late 1880. In a 2001 study, Steven Huebner writes that there may have been additional factors in Chabrier's decision: "the growing momentum of his musical career … his high hopes for the
Gwendoline project, and the first signs of a nervous disorder, probably the result of a syphilitic condition, that would claim his life 14 years later." The librettist was
Catulle Mendès, described by the pianist and scholar
Graham Johnson as "a relentlessly ambitious member of the literary establishment". Mendès wrote texts that were set by at least seven French composers, including Fauré,
Massenet,
Debussy and
Messager; none of his operatic works were successful, and Johnson rates the libretto for
Gwendoline as "catastrophic". Chabrier travelled to London (1882) and Brussels (1883) to hear Wagner's
Ring cycle, and in 1882 Chabrier and his wife visited Spain, which resulted in his most famous work,
España (1883), a mixture of popular airs he had heard and his own original themes. It was premiered under its dedicatee, Lamoureux, in November 1883. It met with what Poulenc calls "immediate and rapturous success", made Chabrier's reputation, and by public demand received multiple performances over the next months. Admirers included
de Falla, who stated that he did not think any Spanish composer had succeeded in achieving so genuine a version of the
jota as in the piece, The
Paris Opéra declined to present
Gwendoline, which was premiered at
La Monnaie in Brussels under
Henry Verdhurdt in 1886. It was well received, but closed after two performances because the
impresario went bankrupt.
William Mann wrote of the music that "in full, rapturous cognizance of mature Wagner", Chabrier composed "great music ...such as the long solo and choral ensemble, 'Soyez unis', and all the love duet music, and there is more Frenchman than Wagner in them, above all in the final Liebestod". While striving for a staging of his opera Chabrier was also working on some of his mature songs – Sommation irrespectueuse, Tes yeux bleus, Chanson pour Jeanne, Lied, as well as a lyric scene for mezzo, women's chorus and orchestra
La Sulamite and the piano version of the
Joyeuse Marche. He then found a new lyric project to tackle –
Le roi malgré lui (The King in Spite of Himself) – and completed the score in six months. It was premiered at the
Opéra-Comique in Paris, and a favourable reception seemed to promise a successful run, but the theatre burned down after the third performance. Through Chabrier's friendship with the Belgian tenor
Ernest van Dyck and subsequently the conductor
Felix Mottl, directors of opera houses in
Leipzig and Munich expressed interest in both works and Chabrier made several happy trips to Germany as a result; his works were given in seven German cities. In July 1888 he was appointed as a
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. He expressed himself in "
Rabelaisian language" and "laced with a profusion of racy slang". In 1994 the musical scholar
Roger Delage, with Frans Durif and Thierry Bodin, produced a 1,300 page edition of the composer's correspondence, containing 1,149 letters, ranging from those to his family and Nanine, exchanges with contemporary friends in the musical world (sometimes with musical quotations), negotiations with publishers, and one a commiseration with his son André on the death of his pet bird (with gentle reproach for having over-fed the creature).
Decline and final years In his final years, Chabrier was troubled by financial problems caused by the collapse of his bankers, failing health brought on by the terminal stage of
syphilis, and depression about the neglect of his stage works in France. The death of his beloved "Nanine" in January 1891 greatly affected him. In 1892, he wrote to his friend
Charles Lecocq, "Never has an artist more loved, more tried to honour music than me, none has suffered more from it; and I will go on suffering from it for ever". He became obsessed with the composition of his final opera
Briséïs, which was inspired by a tragedy of
Goethe and has melodic echoes of Wagner; he completed only one act. The Paris première of
Gwendoline, finally took place in December 1893. The composer, ailing physically and mentally, sitting in a
stage box with his family, enjoyed the music but did not realise he had written it, nor did he understand that the applause was for him. Chabrier succumbed to
general paresis in the last year of his life and died in Paris at the age of 53. His widow and children also suffered from probable infection: she had severe eye problems, becoming almost blind, and, after Chabrier's death, became paraplegic, dying aged 51; the eldest son, Marcel, died at 35 having also displayed related symptoms, and the second son, Charles, died after only five weeks, the youngest, André, also became paraplegic and died also aged 35. ==Works==