Albert-Paul Granier
Albert-Paul Granier was born on 3 September 1888 in Le Croisic (France). His father was a lawyer and an art lover. The family was acquainted with several artists among them the composer Gabriel Faure. Albert-Paul Granier attended school first in Le Croisic, later in Saint-Nazaire and wrote poems and composed music in his leisure time. His received his baccalaureat in 1908 and decided to study law in Nantes. He graduated in 1910 and moved to Paris to fulfill his three-year military service. In Paris Albert-Paul Granier again connected to the local art scene, attended concerts, wrote poems and music (for example a wedding march). In 1914 after the outbreak of World War I Albert-Paul Granier was drafted for artillery and fought at the front line in Verdun in 1916. By 1917 Granier had volunteered and been reassigned as an aerial observer accompanying pilots on reconnaissance missions in the Verdun sector. On 17 August 1917 at one of these missions Albert-Paul Granier's plane was hit by a shell, completely destroyed and his body was never found.
Today Albert-Paul Granier is best known for his publication "Les Coqs et les Vautours", a collection of poems he wrote in his last years while fighting at the front. The work of Albert-Paul Granier was overlooked for many decades but was rediscovered in 2008. His poems were published in a new edition and translated into English recently. Now he is considered as one of the most important "war poets".
In my possession is the autograph music manuscript of the song "Absente" by Albert-Paul Granier. The song is scored for soprano and piano and Albert-Paul Granier wrote both text and music of this composition. It was composed in 1908, i.e. at the time when Albert-Paul Granier finished his school. The work is dedicated to a "Mademoiselle Magdeleine Simonard". I could find much about a person of this name, but a Magdeleine Simonard published a book about voice training in 1922. This could possibly be the same person.
The composition was first published in 1908 by a publishing house called "Chez tous les editeurs" in Le Croisic but copies of that edition are virtually impossible to find nowadays. Therefore I present the composition here to the public.
