Joseph Canteloube

Most notable as an arranger of French folk songs, Canteloube is primarily remembered for the Chants d'Auvergne (1930-1955), five sets of folk songs for voice and piano or orchestra, widely enjoyed for their color, naturalistic beauty, and charm. When Canteloube began his studies with d'Indy in 1901, he soon showed a talent for composing nature music that described the landscape of his native region, the Auvergne. Thus began his lifelong task of traveling throughout France to collect and arrange folk songs for choral, quartet, or solo voices with piano or orchestra accompaniment. His other regional song arrangements include songs from Catalonia, Alsace, Angoumois, Languedoc, Touraine, and the Basque region. Meanwhile, he continued to produce original compositions, but was less successful with these. Outside of his prolific work in folk song, Canteloube's most ambitious projects were operas and biographies.