Fernand Raphaël

Fernand Raphael was a French composer and quite successful in the 1920s and 1930s. Therefore it is strange that I could not find any biographical data about him. So the following text provides a salmagundi of information I found about him.

Fernand Raphael was very likely born around 1880. I own an autograph manuscript of a song by Fernand Raphael that is dated 1902 and sets a poem by Gabriel Montoya to music. So it seems that Fernand Raphael was in Paris at that time and a music student. His name appears for the first times in French newspapers in 1907 as a pianist or organist in several concerts. There he is described as "pianiste emerite" and "organiste excellent". In 1910 a newspaper describes him as "le compositeur bien connu".

In the 1920s and 1930s Fernand Raphael had a prolific career as a composer of operettas. Among his operettas were "Salome, vierge folle" (libretto by Pierre Chambard), "Le retour d'Helene" (libretto by Fernand Noziere), "La culotte de Roi Dagobert" (Libretto by Leon Michel), "Miaou" (libretto by Pierre Varenne & Pierre Chambard) and most successful "Madame Chiffon" with a libretto by Yvette Guilbert and also performed by her.

In 1930 Fernand Raphael was music director of the casino in Mont-Dore. There he worked as a conductor. The latest newspaper article about him dates from August 1939 mentioning him as the conductor of the tour orchestra of Gaston Gabaroche.

I found no other information about Fernand Raphael after 1939, so it is likely that he died during World War II or shortly afterwards.

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the song "L'amour ignore" for voice and piano by Fernand Raphael. The song sets a poem by Gabriel Montoya to music and is dated at the end "Septembre 1902".

Fernand Raphael in 1933