Background

Eugene Bozza was a French composer and violinist who wrote most notably chamber music for wind instruments. He also wrote 5 symphonies, operas, ballets, and large choral works as a well as chansons, concertos and many works for large brass band or woodwind ensembles.

He studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Busser and Rabaud and became famous for his lyrical style.
Bozza won the Prix de Rome in 1934 for his work La Légende de Roukmani, a one-act Cantata. As part of the prize, he lived in Rome at the villa de Medici for the following four years so he could focus on growing as a composer, developing a voice, and honing his art. In Rome, Bozza composed several large-scale works such as his opera Leonidas, his Psalms, and the Introduzione and Toccata for piano and orchestra. He then returned to Paris after being appointed to conduct the Opera-Comique from 1938 to 1948.

Bozza’s Italian heritage is reflected in his lyric side, and his frequent use of cadenzas and recitatives in his works. There are also influences of Impressionism in his use of melody and harmony. He used extended tertian chords (chords based on thirds), parallelism of perfect intervals, and use of chords with added chromatic tones. Whole tone scales, transposed modes, and pentatonic scales are also utilized.