Francis Bayer


Francis Bayer was a French composer and musicologist.

Life

Born in Villerville, it was only after having undertaken postgraduate studies in philosophy at the University of Paris, studies that led him to a doctorate, that Bayer decided to devote himself to musical composition. He was then a student of Henri Dutilleux at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and obtained a degree in composition in his class in 1970.
Among his main works are Perspectives for solo cello, the Prélude à la nuit for orchestra, as well as the Propositions series, a cycle of eight pieces for different audiences, each composed between 1972 and 1989, each illustrating in its own way what can be called a "poetic timbre".
In addition to his activity as a composer, Bayer has been teaching aesthetics and musical analysis as well as instrumentation and orchestration since 1971 in the Music Department of the Paris 8 University where he had as students future composers as different in their aesthetic orientations as Bernard Cavanna, Pascal Dusapin, Jean-Louis Florentz, Régis Renouard-Larivière, Bernard de Vienne and Patrick Andrey, for example.
He is also the author of several studies published in various journals and of an important theoretical book entitled: De Schönberg à Cage, published in Paris by Klincksieck Editions and, in collaboration with Nicolas Zourabichvili, of a translation and critical edition of the Correspondance de Moussorgski.
Bayer died from cancer in Paris at age 65.

Discography