Fugue à 4

Charles Lenepveu (1840-1910) showed promise early on with a cantata that earned him the prestigious Prix de Rome (1867). After some small success in the following years, he would earn a professorship at the Paris Conservatoire, teaching with a strict conservative approach to music. His Fugue a 4 can be seen as an example of the state of French music, just before the major influences of Faure, Ravel, and Debussy. Couturier has arranged the Fugue, originally for womens voices, for trumpet quartet, which can be expanded to any number of trumpets. Interestingly, Lenepveu's other claim to fame would be as a central figure in "L'affair Ravel," in which the young Maurice Ravel was himself denied the Prix de Rome, perhaps through machinations by Lenepveu. The resulting scandal would deny him the directorship of the Conservatoire, which was awarded to Gabriel Faure, instead.