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 Pierre Wissmer’s music bears testimony to his ethnic origins, his
musical education and his time Taking on all these influences, he made them
his own, often in a synthetic way. Yet, above all, he used his personal
imagination to trace his own creative path, treading it deliberately, making
no concessions whatsoever.
Pierre Wissmer was born in 1915 in Geneva, of ancien Vaudois descent on
his father’s side but his mother Xenia Kowarsky, was of Russian
origin. Both parents were doctors. They recognized their son’s talents
and helped channel his interests. His mother, whose Slavic charm was irresistible,
was fluent in several languages, loved music and would often sing melodies
by Tchaïkovsky. She also enjoyed ballet, drama and literature and
soon realized which way her son’s education should go. But war was
raging at the time and doctors were always on the breach. The family left
town and settled in a charming little place named Corsier, a dozen kilometers
or so from Geneva. The beautiful light and the serene swaying of the boats
on the lake added to the beauty of the place. It was a time of forced
reclusion, sometimes brightened up by entertainment, like a performance
of Petrouchka. by the « Russian Ballet » which made a deep
impression on the young child. This first real encounter with music also
added to his awareness of that Russian sensitivity he knew through his
mother. Two friends of his parents exercised further decisive influence
on his artistic tastes. One, Stéphanie Guerzoni, , was a very famous
painter and the other, Andrée Hess, was a pianist and a very good
teacher. A keen sportswoman besides, she also developed the boy’s
swimming and bikeriding skills. He immersed himself briefly but intensely
in painting - submitting to the discipline of learning the technique proved
too difficult. Music, on the other hand, made its way slowly but surely.
Pierre Wissmer started studying music at the Genève Conservatoire
while still at high school. He gratuated as a classics major and, following
his parents’ advice, decided to study law, but at the same time
got quite involved in his piano studies. Robert Casadesus, then a frequent
visitor at the Genova Conservatoire, encouraged him warmly. Unfortunately,
the young man felt very disappointed by what the harmony class had to
offer: neither Ravel nor Honegger nor Stravinsky were used as examples;
and his aesthetic aspirations could not be satisfied with Beethoven and
César Franck alone.
The vitality of the musical scene in French-speaking Switzerland at that
time is reflected in the names of composers Jacques Dalcroze, Ernest Bloch
and Frank Martin. France and Switzerland enjoyed excellent artistic relations
- of which Ernest Ansermet is the emblematic figure. Promising young musicians
were keenly encouraged to go to the Paris Conservatoire. And so Pierre
Wissmer prepared for the entrance exam.
 Both Jules Gentil and pianist Jacqueline Blancard helped him improve
his techinque and get ready for the famous school. He made the first round
at the top of the list, but relaxed a bit too much, spending more time
with his lady friends than with his piano and flunked the finals. Was
it a wink of Fate? Other roads beckoned to him. He is recommended to Roger-Ducasse,
who has just taken over the composition class from Paul Dukas, and accepts
Wissmer as an auditor. Wissmer is fascinated by this teacher whose culture
and professional strictness force him to work on his own technical background,
especially composition. He also registers at the Schola Cantorum where
Daniel-Lesur, a member of the board of governors, teaches counterpoint.
The student and his teacher (who is but seven years his senior) strike
a deep friendship which will last all their lives.
In the open-minded atmosphere of the Schola, Daniel-Lesur proved most
instrumental in helping Pierre Wissmer understand his own creative nature,
mastering the rules of counterpoint as well as the thought process inferred
by this particular technique. Indeed, all his music will make use of learned
or graceful contrapuntal textures. Every comment on form, instrumentation,
balance - always exposed, never imposed by his teacher - is beneficial.
Studying with Daniel-Lesur is a liberating experience, as he wrote later
: « Composition was no longer a exercise void of sense. It became
the composer’s tool, sharpened to perfection. Of course, rules were
strict yet always justified from the viewpoint of clarity of expression,
more elegant, more appropriate to one’s idea, and in the end more
personal. ». Pierre Wissmer also studied conducting with Charles
Münch at the Ecole Normale de Musique, thus rounding off a solid
music education.
Endowed with powerful intuition and generous imagination, Pierre Wissmer
first wrote chamber music before moving on to orchestral music, which
he’ll write all his life with the strong hand of a refined color-expert.
His first piano concerto is premiered by Jacqueline Blancard and broadcast
live on February 10, 1937 with Henri Tomasi. conducting. A year later,
his first symphony is premiered in Winterthur by Hermann Scherchen. In
1939, he composed Le beau dimanche, a one-act ballet on an argument by
his friend Pierre Guérin, who introduced him by and by to people
like Stravinsky, Poulenc, Sauguet, Cocteau, Bernac, Bérard and
Hervé Dugardin to whom he’ll always feel very close.
Joining the French army during the war, as a « Swiss citizen living
abroad » (he became a naturalized Franchman in 1958), he was drafted
into a motorized artillery unit sent from place to place at short notice.
He went to Talloires a few times to meet with Daniel-Lesur. Then he had
to go back to Genova where several of his new pieces were being premiered,
among which his first concerto for violin with the Suisse Romande Orchestra.
In 1944, he was appointed professor for composition at the Genova Conservatory,
and head of the Chamber Music Dept. at Radio-Genève. In spite of
his many obligations, he’ll never neglect what he considers a superior
calling : composition. A rational realist, he’s inclined to act,
yet his strong inventiveness urges him to create.
During the following years, he tackled varoius genres. He composed Marion
ou La belle au tricorne, an opéra-comique. He also wrote many chamber
music works for piano, voice and string quartet, music for the radio,
including L’histoire d’un concerto which was awarded the Grand
Prix suisse de la radio and his Second Symphony. On February 6, 1948,
he married Laure-Anne Etienne, a former pupil of Marguerite Long at the
Paris Conservatoire. After the young couple settled in Paris, she helped
and assisted him all throughout his career.
From 1952 to 1957, Pierre Wissmer was assistant-director at Radio-Luxembourg,
later director of programming at Télé-Luxembourg. At the
beginning of 1957, Daniel Lesur, now head of the Schola Cantorum, called
him to be his assistant (he’ll be director of the Schola in 1962-1963),
and put him in charge students, most of them of excellent and varied cultural
backgrounds, he shone forth as a teacher. Confiding in his pupil Jean-Jacques
Werner, he once said : « To be in total agreement with oneself is
fundamental... » but added « no matter what your musical idea
is worth, it will never go anywhere nor live without proper setting. ».
 Setting is his prime concern. Setting and not musical language : «
The issue of « language » is a non-issue which has bothered
only minor musicians or major musicians at particularly low times of their
creative lives... ». Asked about the careful working-out of a piece,
he insisted on the demands and priorities of the job : « The right
form, the choice of proper sound materials, the balance between the various
elements, the beat of the musical discourse, the fine-tuning of polyphony
(i.e. pattern) and of orchestration (i.e. colours), the definition of
all details of performance (breathing, bow-strokes, nuances, tempi) all
this needs the clocklmaker’s percision and the Benedictine’s
patience, both led by the water diviner’s intuition. ».
A very dedicated teacher, Pierre Wissmer was nonetheless very aware of
his creative mission. Over the years , he composed some powerful works,
refelcting the evolution of his way of thinking, always noble and full
of natural distinction whether going through ardour, austerity or asceticism.
Symphonic and operatic music seem to be his two favourite genres. If some
works are commissioned (among which his opera Leonidas, for the Jeunesses
Musicales Françaises), his personal inclination also leans this
way. A symphony cycle grows with regularity - a third symphony for string
orchestra, the following ones for full orchestra - and manages to express
his ideas in a niw manner each time. His vast instrumental knowledge prompts
him to write concertos for solo instruments : clarinet (1960), trumpet
(1961), oboe (1963), and flute (Concertino-croisière in 1966).
That same year, he wrote the State-commissioned concerto valcrosiano,
whose name is derived from the little hamlet in Provence where he used
to spend his summer vacation.
In 1965 his oratorio Le quatrième mage was awarded the Grand Prix
Paul Gilson by the French-speaking Countries Radio Association. He himself
conducted the premiere at Radio Suisse Romande. In 1967, he composed a
ballet : Christina et les chimères (argument and choreography :
Michel Descombey) and was awarded the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris
for Quadrige, a quartet for flute, violin, cello and piano. At that time,
he is very much attracted by chamber music. Quadrige, was followed by
Sonatine pour flùte et guitare and Quintette à vent in which
he tried, according to his own words, to achieve « harmonious balance
between the virtuosity inherent to the genre and the formal and sound
structures of pure music.
He is indeed the epitome of balance himself, combining - as Bernard Gavoty
and Daniel-Lesur once wrote in a portrait of the composer « typical
French clarity and Swiss precision, together with a very Italian taste
for brilliance and just that touch of Slavic nonchalance, inherited from
his mother ».
 During the sixties and seventies, he travelled extensively as a guest-conductor
and teacher. During the Montréal Expo’ ha was in charge of
an orchestration and analysis course at the Music Pavilion. In 1969, he
was appointed director of Le Mans National Music School and in 1973 professor
for composition and orchestration at the Genova Conservatoire. Ten years
later, the city of Genova awarded him its Grand Prix Musical for his lifetime
achievement and his decication to Swiss musical life. Pierre Wissmer died
in France in 1992, shortly after his wife whose ongoing support helped
him all his life.
She most aptly commented on her husband’s work : « Is Pierre
Wissmer’s music classical, romantic or modern? Any aspect should
not exclude the other two. His music is in no way backward-looking, yet
it would be jumping rashly to conclusions to try and confine it to any
of the musical « schools » of our century. People usually
acknowledge his writing technique to be filled with wirtuosity, as regards
polyphony or orchestration. Maybe it would even be more relevant to note
the subtle adequacy between his language and his very individual thought,
robust yet delicate, in which the sheer exhilaration of life stumbles
over anxious questioning ».
Audiences have always welcomed his music, wether ballet, opera, great
symphonic works or concertos. Indeed, in its tragic or serene message,
every listener can hear the soul of a man whose powerful thought could
only find its right expression through the medium music.
Pierrette Germain
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