Andre Prieur; French flautist and conductor
Hyfler/Rosner
May 7, 2005
HEADLINE: French flautist and conductor enriched Irish
musical life
Andre Prieur: The French flautist and conductor Andre
Prieur, who has died at the age of 84, enriched Irish
musical life for nearly three decades.
He arrived in Dublin as principal flute of the Radio Eireann
Symphony Orchestra in 1950 and quickly became involved in
chamber music. He founded the Prieur Ensemble, with its
unusual line-up of flute, harp and string trio, formed a duo
with pianist Rhoda Coghill and became the flautist of the
flexibly sized group, Les Amis de la Musique.
In 1970, with himself as conductor and oboist Lindsay
Armstrong as manager, he founded the New Irish Chamber
Orchestra, a group which established new standards of
orchestral performance here and quickly became the most
widely toured of Irish orchestras.
Andre Prieur was born in 1921 and brought up in
Bernieres-sur-Mer on the Normandy coast west of Le Havre. At
the Paris Conservatoire he studied flute (under one of the
greatest players of the time, Marcel Moyse) as well as piano
and chamber music, and attained a Premier Prix in both
instruments.
He joined the Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra at a time
when many of its key positions had been filled through
recruitment from continental Europe - his predecessor was
another French man, Christian Larde. In Paris he had
freelanced with the Lamoureux and Pasdeloup orchestras, as
well as with the orchestra of the Societe des Concerts du
Conservatoire.
His early playing in Dublin has been described by a
colleague as remarkable for "a consummate artistry in the
French style, immaculate technique, and a wonderful sense of
phrasing". In his days in Paris, his playing of Ravel is
said to have attracted the praise of pianist Marguerite
Long, dedicatee and first performer of the composer's Piano
Concerto in G. Among the Irish composers whose work he
espoused in his chamber music activities were Seoirse
Bodley, Gerard Victory and Brian Boydell.
Although he studied conducting in the 1950s under the
symphony orchestra's principal conductor of the time, Milan
Horvat, it was not until the creation of the New Irish
Chamber Orchestra that a wide public came to know him as a
conductor. The orchestra consisted of colleagues from the
RTESO, and its early work was quickly acknowledged through a
GBP 10,000 grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Its first recording for the New Irish Recording Company
followed in 1971 - Haydn's Symphony No. 65, Stravinsky's
Dumbarton Oaks, and Victory's Miroirs, which had been
written for and premiered by the orchestra in 1970. More
Haydn followed on disc, and in 1973 Prieur and his players
collaborated with James Galway on his first recording of the
Mozart flute concertos. Prieur also recorded Berlioz and
Lennox Berkeley with mezzo-soprano Bernadette Greevy.
Galway was the soloist on the 15-stop tour in which the
orchestra made its North American debut in 1978, and
orchestra, conductor and flautist were together again in
studio in 1979, this time taping an LP of concertos by
Stamitz for RCA.
Galway remembers him as "most genial and friendly, always
with a smile and ready to go. He was very nice to work with,
especially on flute concertos. That record of Stamitz still
sets a standard for people to measure themselves against
these days."
A highlight of the orchestra's early years was the
performance at St Patrick's Cathedral of Shostakovich's
Chamber Symphony, given in the presence of the composer, who
was in Dublin to receive an honorary degree from Trinity
College.
Prieur also conducted the Carnegie Hall premiere of this
work, on tour with NICO in November 1978, and in one of his
less frequently recalled collaborations, conducted John
Tavener's Piano Concerto with the composer as soloist, in
London in 1975.
His years with the orchestra saw tours to France,
Switzerland, Austria, Italy and the USSR. Work at home
brought a complete cycle of the Mozart piano concertos with
Miceal O'Rourke, and of the Beethoven concertos with pianist
John O'Conor, violinist Therese Timoney and cellist Aisling
Drury Byrne.
In person and on the podium, Andre Prieur always appeared
the elegant French man, and his musical style was typically
suave and well turned. In spite of his success with the
chamber orchestra, he only once conducted the full RTESO, in
the summer of 1971, when he gave an airing to a rarely-heard
French masterpiece, La Peri by Paul Dukas.
Friends describe him as a great sportsman -he had an
interest in yachting, shooting and fishing- a bon vivant and
a gourmet. James Galway recalls that a trip together on a
chartered plane generated an excitement that led to the
taking of a pilot's licence.
Prieur relinquished his position with the RTESO in 1979 and
took up an appointment as professor of flute and chamber
music at the College of Fine Arts of the University of
Boston. He had always been active as a teacher in Ireland,
and his pupils included Edward Beckett, Patricia Dunkerley
and Madeleine Staunton. After his retirement, he lived
variously in Canada and France.
After leaving Ireland, he returned professionally to conduct
concerts for the orchestra's 15th and 20th anniversaries.
His legacy is in a healthy state 35 years on. In 1986 the
orchestra dropped the "New" from its name and in 1995
established itself as an independent entity, breaking the
dependence on RTE players. Now, working out of the World
Music Centre at the University of Limerick, it has become
first professional orchestra in this country to be based
outside the capital.
He is survived by his wife, Nancy, their son Francis and
daughter Carol, and a son, Herve, and a daughter, Joelle,
from a previous marriage.
Andre Prieur: born March 23rd, 1921; died, April 23rd, 2005