Mourning for a French music writer

Mourning for a French music writer

RIP

norman lebrecht

July 26, 2021

Friends have informed us of the death, aged 90, of André Tubeuf.

Originally from Smyrna (Izmir), he was a progressive force in charge of musical affairs at the ministry of culture in the 1970s, Tubeuf went on to write hundreds of musical essays as well as lyrical and accessible music biographies, reviving the genre in France.

Comments

  • Petros Linardos says:

    For some of us very familar name from well written notes that accompanied CDs. RIP

  • Bruno Michel says:

    Such a loss. The most knowledgeable in his trade in France, by a long shot. With such an incredibly elegant usage of our language. And such a kind person.

  • Jackson says:

    I have always found his writings unbearably pretentious. The French EMI “Référence” series had notes by him which were not translated into English but accompanied by notes in English by another hand. There must have been a reason behind this.

    • Petros LInardos says:

      I thought of different notes in different languages as the equivalent of luxury casting in printed information. DG did that a lot, especially in big albums or opera.
      I sometimes read them all, in English, German, French, Italian. I can assure you the quality was very comparable, the notes often complimentary.
      Indeed, there was a reason they didn’t translate André Tubeuf’s notes. A very good one, one I miss.

    • Armchair Bard says:

      There was indeed a reason, Jackson. (I think, given the very considerable achievements Norman sets out above and M. Tubeuf’s length of years, that it is not particularly mauvais goût to consider these things.)

      Some of Tubeuf’s (non-Références) CD notes used to land on my editorial desk for Eng. trans. They tended to be indeed pretentious, not to say decidedly content-free. My excellent translator would delete as many words as he felt he could; I, in plenipotentiary position as booklet editor, would delete some more. There was then very little left, of course; so that after a while we decided for every reason to commission instead original English notes. My French opposite number entirely understood.

      I particularly remember a Chopin note which trailed off at the end with a completely irrelevant musing on when the author was a boy and used to sit by the river and… [ellipses in original and passim]. RIP

  • Armchair Bard says:

    May I offer a brief and neutral PS that quickly passes over differing opinions of M. Tubeuf’s writing?

    Commissioning original notes in different languages cuts both ways. It gets round the tricky business – even for the best translator – of translating into and out of varying traditions and styles of writing. (let’s not get touch on the notorious inadequacy of some booklet translations).

    But it introduces the thorny matter of reconciling inevitable factual discrepancies, a problem that authors may not always want to help with. As no doubt Mr Linardos will have noticed when that matter has not been attended to.

  • Zenaida says:

    André Tobeuf was an elegant, incredibly erudite man who, when asked, was most generous with his knowledge. Yes, his style was full of flourishes and Proustian embellishments but that was his charm. I remember spending time with him in the mid-80s in Strasbourg and being enthralled by his personality. RIP

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