Alain Weber


Alain Weber was a French composer and music educator.

Training and activities

Born in Château-Thierry, Weber began his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1941. First Grand Prix de Rome in 1952, he won the same year the Sogeda Prize for his ballet Le Petit Jeu. Lecturer at the Conservatoire de Paris since 1957, he taught preparation for the teaching profession, solfège and counterpoint, then in 1970 he assumed the function of professor advisor to studies.
The Grand Prix du disque français was awarded to him in 1982 for his television work La Rivière Perdue. President of many juries, he was also a member of the symphonic commission of the SACEM, then of the reading committee of Radio France. He carried out numerous educational missions abroad. Alain Weber was an officer of the Ordre national du Mérite.

Technique and aesthetics

Weber's work focuses on an exploration of forms of writing that are constantly being renewed. Parallel to some serials works freely treated, he developed a writing in quarter tones. He also employed various techniques of indeterministic composition, such as certain uses of transparent sheets, which, seen from different angles, generate transformations of pre-established melodic and harmonic propositions. Fascinated by poetic forms, he knows how to reconnect with the spirit of the pantoum, and acrostic, also inspired by the phonemes of Jean Cocteau's Poème de l'Étoile to create a vocal expression in onomatopoeias. He composed a musical tale for children, but also instrumental works: his pedagogical research led him to use random, a rather flexible technique, assimilable by young performers. Each work poses a different musical problem, however, Weber's compositions evolve through a certain unity, never revealing a real break.

Selected works