His most notable early performance was the world premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird, at the Ballets Russes, Paris, on 25 June 1910. He remained in the post until 1933 (when Paul Paray took over his duties).
He made a few electrical recordings for Odeon Records, from 1928 to 1934, conducting the L'Orchestre Colonne, including a 1929 performance of his Ramuntcho and a 1931 performance of excerpts from his ballet Cydalise et le Chevre-pied.
Pierné wrote several operas, choral and symphonic pieces as well as a good deal of chamber music. His most famous composition is probably the oratorioLa Croisade des enfants based on the book by Marcel Schwob. Also notable are such shorter works as his March of the Little Lead Soldiers, which once enjoyed substantial popularity (not only in France) as an encore; the comparably popular Marche des petits faunes is from his ballet Cydalise et le Chèvre-pied. His chamber work Introduction et variations sur une ronde populaire for saxophone quartet is a standard in the saxophone quartet repertoire.
Henri Busser: Notice sur la vie et des oeuvres de M. Gabriel Pierné (Paris: Académie des Beaux Arts, 1938).
Georges Masson: Gabriel Pierné, musicien lorrain (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1987).
References
^Richard Nelson Current & Marcia Ewing Current: Loie Fuller. Goddess of Light (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997).
^Some musicians have argued that this work was the model for Proust's Vinteuil Sonata : Thorpe, Vanessa (September 30, 2017). "Virtuoso sisters claim to have solved Proust's musical puzzle". The Guardian. Retrieved September 7, 2021.
External links
Naxos.com: Gabriel Pierné
"Of Church and circus": biography[dead link] a commercial link is here – [1][dead link]