Review Text
Between dream and necessity Emile Goué (1904 - 1946) has left some forty compositions as well as a number of writings on the theory of musical composition. Yet his career was scientific and academic, and outstanding in that he obtained his doctorate in physics at the age of twenty-five and was Professor in specialised mathematics at the lycée Louis-le-Grand at the time of his death. But his gift for science was not his only one, as he was an artist who felt the overpowering need to abandon himself to composition, something that was more than a passion, indeed a genuine philosophy: "Music for me is a metaphysical activity and is inseparable from my life." Goué entered the Toulouse Conservatory in 1924, at that period under the direction of Aymé Kunc. Coming to Paris in 1936, he received advice from Albert Roussel, before becoming one of Charles Koechlin's special pupils. A promising pupil who unfortunately was to see his career cut down by the war: called up in 1939, he was held prisoner from June 1940 to May 1945, interned during this period in Oflag XB in Nienburg an der Weser. Once repatriated, he was never able to shake off the effects of his captivity, dying less than eighteen months after his return. "Nothing is more detestable than music without an idea behind it," said Chopin. Amazingly this quotation applies just as much to Goué, although it goes against the romantic spirit. If he does not display the sentimental states of his soul, he completely opens the gates of his tormented inner life to the listener, something which gives his work a rare depth. In the works from before the outbreak of war, he still seems to be looking for a style of his own: the influence of Debussy and Koechlin are clearly important. But it was when Goué was made prisoner that his language attains it's full maturity: without in any way standing in way of his creative activity, this internment proving taxing morally as well as physically, was bound to give grounds for total despair and paradoxically to transcend this "inner necessity" to express his soul's torments. Making use of the modern harmony and counterpoint's developments, his music has most often an unequalled severity, his pupil's work being described by Koechlin as follows: "It's extremely serious, often bitter, even unusual, sometimes quite austere, tragic as well." "Goué makes use of certain compositional devices," described to perfection by his friend and pupil in the Nienburg camp, Philippe Gordien. "Emile Goué considered the traditional assertion of tonality an essential part of the French temperament, but a developed tonality reaching without complex polymodality. The infinite resources of contrapuntal writing allowed a multitude of combination of themes. His passionate reflexions on the theory of form, develop those of Vincent d'Indy. His temperament for a construction aware of unity made him prefer the use of a single theme from which a whole work develops, as exemplified by Bach." If Goué is a French musician, it is difficult to speak of French music in the sense of the aesthetic generally understood, at least for the compositions of maturity, his taste for counterpoint and form dominates most of his work and is rather the heritage of the German school. To assign him to any particular movement presents problems, his composition is so personal and the influences are so varied that this is impossible. Emile Goué is simply a great name of the twentieth century, with an exceptionally original language, which should be known. The first suite Ambiances (1935) recalls the Préludes or even more Les Six Epigraphes Antiques of Debussy. His influence appears all important in Goué, whether pianistically or harmonically, the most obvious element of this being the great use of the tonal scale (it should be noted that it is the same for the youthful works of Milhaud who like Goué, will gradually wean himself from Debussy's influence). The writing of this suite remains very perso
