Unlike many musicians who started to learn music while still in their
childhood, Maurice Jarre was already late in his teens when he
discovered music and decided to make a career in that field. Against
his father's will, he enrolled at Conservatoire de Paris where he
studied percussions, composition and harmonies. He also met and studied
under Joseph Martenot, inventor of the Martenot Waves, an electronic
keyboard that prefigured the modern synthesizer.
After leaving the Conservatoire, Jarre played percussion and Martenot
Waves for a while at Jean-Louis Barrault's theater. In 1950, another
actor-director, Jean Vilar , asked Jarre to score his production of
Kleist's 'The Princess of Homburg', the first score Jarre wrote.
Shortly after, Vilar created the 'Théâtre National Populaire' and hired
Jarre as permanent composer, an association that lasted 12 years.
In 1951, filmmaker Georges Franju asked
him to write the music of his 23 minutes documentary
Der Invalidendom (1952),
Jarre's first composition for the movie screen. His first full-length
feature, again directed by Georges Franju, was
Mit dem Kopf gegen die Wände (1959)
followed by Franju's best known film,
Augen ohne Gesicht (1960).
Jarre's career took a spectacular turn in 1961 when producer
Sam Spiegel asked him to work on
David Lean's
Lawrence von Arabien (1962).
Initially, three composers were supposed to write the score, but for
various reasons, Jarre ended up writing all the music himself and won
his first Oscar. His second collaboration with David Lean on
Doktor Schiwago (1965) earned him
another Oscar and obtained a level of success rarely achieved by a film
score. He collaborated with Lean again on
Ryans Tochter (1970) and
Reise nach Indien (1984)
for which he received a third Academy Award. He was set to score Lean's
next movie, 'Nostromo', but the director became ill and died before the
film could ever get made.
He also worked for directors as diverse as
William Wyler
(Der Fänger (1965));
John Huston (three films);
Franco Zeffirelli
(Jesus von Nazareth (1977));
Volker Schlöndorff
(Die Blechtrommel (1979) [The
Tin Drum] and
Die Fälschung (1981) [Circle of
Deceit]); Peter Weir (four films);
Michael Apted
(Gorillas im Nebel (1988))
and Alfonso Arau
(Dem Himmel so nah (1995)).
Mainly perceived as a symphonist and known for his prominent use of
percussions, Jarre often integrated ethnic instruments in his
orchestrations like cithara on 'Lawrence of Arabia' or fujara (an old
Slovak flute) on 'The Tin Drum'. During the eighties, he incorporated
synthetic sounds in his music, writing his first entirely electronic
score for
Ein Jahr in der Hölle (1982).
His son Jean-Michel Jarre is a
well-known popular musician.
