Charles Koechlin was born in Paris to a family of Alsatian manufacturers and engineers. Torn between music and various other interests (astronomy, mathematics, natural science…), he was admitted into the École Polytechnique. But in 1888 he finally decided to pursue his passion for music. Too old for the entry exam, he joined the Conservatory as an auditor (1890-1900), where he was held in high regard by his professors Fauré and Massenet. In 1902 he married Suzanne Pierrard: intelligent and sensitive, she allowed the musician to serenely follow his path and gave him five children, to whom Koechlin was a dedicated and caring father. From that point on, his life merged with the creation of his work, an arduous existence not free from material concerns, though which lightened up in the summertime with holidays spent in Villers-sur-Mer, in the Calvados, and Boulouris and Canadel on the French Riviera, where, being an architecture enthusiast, he had two houses built based on his own designs. The need to provide for his family led him to start giving lessons; this was a chance for him to perfect his knowledge of chorales, counterpoints and fugues, to the point of becoming an unsurpassed master in the 20th century.
From these activities, he created an impressive series of textbooks (on counterpoint, choral music, harmony, orchestration and modal polyphony), some of which are still relied on today. Among his numerous students were Poulenc, Sauguet and Désormière. While he was invited to the United States for conferences at various universities, French official institutions never accepted him: this was the price he had to pay for his independence and modernity (though this did earn him the admiration of some of his young peers Milhaud and Dutilleux). Far from shutting himself away in an ivory tower, and well aware of his social responsibility as an artist, he was, as President of the Fédération musicale populaire (People’s musical federation), at the forefront of the fight to help people gain access to the art of music. A recipient of numerous awards, he received orders from the state and gained a certain recognition after 1930. However, this appreciation mainly came from Brussels, due to tireless praises from musicologist Paul Collaer and conductor Franz André who, in the author’s presence, created two major works leading the Radio Orchestra (INR − Institut national de radiodiffusion): Le Livre de la jungle (The Jungle Book, 1946) and Le Docteur Fabricius (Doctor Fabricius, 1949). Working until his very last day, Koechlin died on the December 31st, 1951 in his home in Canadel. On his tombstone − located in the garden, surrounded by this nature from which he gathered so much strength and inspiration – reads this sentence: “The spirit of my work, and that of my entire life, is above all a spirit of freedom.”
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