André Prieur: The French flautist and conductor André Prieur, who has died at the age of 84, enriched Irish musical life for nearly three decades.
He arrived in Dublin as principal flute of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra in 1950 and quickly became involved in chamber music. He founded the Prieur Ensemble, with its unusual line-up of flute, harp and string trio, formed a duo with pianist Rhoda Coghill and became the flautist of the flexibly sized group, Les Amis de la Musique.
In 1970, with himself as conductor and oboist Lindsay Armstrong as manager, he founded the New Irish Chamber Orchestra, a group which established new standards of orchestral performance here and quickly became the most widely toured of Irish orchestras.
André Prieur was born in 1921 and brought up in Bernières-sur-Mer on the Normandy coast west of Le Havre. At the Paris Conservatoire he studied flute (under one of the greatest players of the time, Marcel Moyse) as well as piano and chamber music, and attained a Premier Prix in both instruments.
He joined the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra at a time when many of its key positions had been filled through recruitment from continental Europe - his predecessor was another French man, Christian Lardé. In Paris he had freelanced with the Lamoureux and Pasdeloup orchestras, as well as with the orchestra of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire.
His early playing in Dublin has been described by a colleague as remarkable for "a consummate artistry in the French style, immaculate technique, and a wonderful sense of phrasing". In his days in Paris, his playing of Ravel is said to have attracted the praise of pianist Marguerite Long, dedicatee and first performer of the composer's Piano Concerto in G. Among the Irish composers whose work he espoused in his chamber music activities were Seóirse Bodley, Gerard Victory and Brian Boydell.
Although he studied conducting in the 1950s under the symphony orchestra's principal conductor of the time, Milan Horvat, it was not until the creation of the New Irish Chamber Orchestra that a wide public came to know him as a conductor. The orchestra consisted of colleagues from the RTÉSO, and its early work was quickly acknowledged through a £10,000 grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Its first recording for the New Irish Recording Company followed in 1971 - Haydn's Symphony No. 65, Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks, and Victory's Miroirs, which had been written for and premiered by the orchestra in 1970. More Haydn followed on disc, and in 1973 Prieur and his players collaborated with James Galway on his first recording of the Mozart flute concertos. Prieur also recorded Berlioz and Lennox Berkeley with mezzo-soprano Bernadette Greevy.
Galway was the soloist on the 15-stop tour in which the orchestra made its North American debut in 1978, and orchestra, conductor and flautist were together again in studio in 1979, this time taping an LP of concertos by Stamitz for RCA.
Galway remembers him as "most genial and friendly, always with a smile and ready to go. He was very nice to work with, especially on flute concertos. That record of Stamitz still sets a standard for people to measure themselves against these days."
A highlight of the orchestra's early years was the performance at St Patrick's Cathedral of Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, given in the presence of the composer, who was in Dublin to receive an honorary degree from Trinity College.
Prieur also conducted the Carnegie Hall premiere of this work, on tour with NICO in November 1978, and in one of his less frequently recalled collaborations, conducted John Tavener's Piano Concerto with the composer as soloist, in London in 1975.
His years with the orchestra saw tours to France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and the USSR. Work at home brought a complete cycle of the Mozart piano concertos with Míceál O'Rourke, and of the Beethoven concertos with pianist John O'Conor, violinist Thérèse Timoney and cellist Aisling Drury Byrne.
In person and on the podium, André Prieur always appeared the elegant French man, and his musical style was typically suave and well turned. In spite of his success with the chamber orchestra, he only once conducted the full RTÉSO, in the summer of 1971, when he gave an airing to a rarely-heard French masterpiece, La Péri by Paul Dukas.
Friends describe him as a great sportsman -he had an interest in yachting, shooting and fishing- a bon vivant and a gourmet. James Galway recalls that a trip together on a chartered plane generated an excitement that led to the taking of a pilot's licence.
Prieur relinquished his position with the RTÉSO in 1979 and took up an appointment as professor of flute and chamber music at the College of Fine Arts of the University of Boston. He had always been active as a teacher in Ireland, and his pupils included Edward Beckett, Patricia Dunkerley and Madeleine Staunton. After his retirement, he lived variously in Canada and France.
After leaving Ireland, he returned professionally to conduct concerts for the orchestra's 15th and 20th anniversaries. His legacy is in a healthy state 35 years on. In 1986 the orchestra dropped the "New" from its name and in 1995 established itself as an independent entity, breaking the dependence on RTÉ players. Now, working out of the World Music Centre at the University of Limerick, it has become first professional orchestra in this country to be based outside the capital.
He is survived by his wife, Nancy, their son Francis and daughter Carol, and a son, Hervé, and a daughter, Joelle, from a previous marriage.
André Prieur: born March 23rd, 1921; died, April 23rd, 2005