A composer from Neuchâtel

A relatively unknown composer outside his native canton (where both his position as organist at the Collégiale de Neuchâtel from 1942 until his death in 1987 and his teaching activities have left their mark), Samuel Ducommun composed over a hundred works that reveal the influences of Honegger or Dupré - his encounter with the latter being of key importance in his development as a musician. While some of his compositions were premiered, for example, at the annual celebrations of the Swiss Musicians' Association, many are still awaiting their first performance. Antonin Scherrer, author of several books devoted to French-speaking musicians (including, most recently, the biographies of Raffaele d'Alessandro (Papillon) and Jean Perrin (Infolio)), draws on exceptional documentation to retrace the life and career of Ducommun, who was also a choral conductor, a teacher in several schools - where he introduced countless pupils to the beauties of music - and a tireless concert organizer. A sympathetic and engaging character, an alert writer with a gift for humor, he spent his entire life in and around Neuchâtel. In his many recitals, he was more often at the service of the works of fellow Swiss and foreign composers (including Beck, Burkhard, Dupré, Gagnebin and Hindemith) than his own.

The pages plunge us into an era and a region where religion was still omnipresent, even heavy-handed, musicians were largely underpaid, and cultural life was still in its infancy outside the major urban centers (even if some pioneers were putting their talents to good use). The pleasant, airy graphic design features numerous reproductions of documents and photographs, as well as biographical notes enabling readers to (re-)discover many of Samuel Ducommun's organists, composers and acquaintances. The book's sturdy hardback is the setting for a CD containing mainly a few of the composer's works, most notably the Toccata sur le nom de Marcel Dupré, as well as an improvisation, an art in which he was a master, both of which are clearly French aesthetics.

Antonin Scherrer, Samuel Ducommun (1914-1987). De la terre jusqu'au ciel, 352 p., cd, Infolio éditions, Gollion 2014, ISBN 978-2-88474-352-5