Maurice Emmanuel

Marie François Maurice Emmanuel (2 May 1862 – 14 December 1938) was a French composer of classical music and musicologist born in Bar-sur-Aube, a small town in the Champagne-Ardenne region of northeastern France. It was there where he first heard his grandfather's printing press which according to his granddaughter, Anne Eichner-Emmanuel, first gave him the feeling of rhythm. Brought up in Dijon, Maurice Emmanuel became a chorister at Beaune cathedral after his family moved to the city in 1869. According to his granddaughter, Anne Eichner-Emmanuel, he was influenced by the brass bands on the streets of Beaune and by the "songs of the grape pickers which imprinted melodies in his memory so different from all the classical music he was taught in the academy of music." Subsequently, he went to Paris, and in 1880 he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where his composition teacher was Léo Delibes.