Dancla, Charles (EN)

Dancla Jean-Baptiste-Charles *19 December 1817 Bagnères-de-Bigorre (Hautes-Pyrénées), †10 November 1907 Tunis, French violinist, composer, and teachers. From 1828 to 1840 he studied at the Paris Conservatory under P. Guérin and P. Baillot (violin), J. Halévy (counterpoint), and H.-M. Berton (composition). From 1835 he played in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique in Paris, soon becoming first violin soloist; he held the same position from 1841 to 1863 with the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Around 1837 he founded, together with D. Alard, Croisilles, and C. Chevillard, a string quartet, which from 1840 gave regular chamber music concerts in Paris. During the 1848 Revolutions he left Paris and spent two years as a postmaster in Cholet, without giving up performance. From 1855 to 1892 he taught violin at the Paris Conservatory.

Dancla’s playing was marked by strong emotional expression, sometimes intensity, supported by precise virtuosity; he was close in style to H. Vieuxtemps, whom he regarded as the perfect violinist. He played an important role as a chamber musician, introducing French audiences to Beethoven’s string quartets. His performances with his brothers Arnaud and Léopold, and with his sister Laura Deliphard (1824–1880), pianist and composer, were extremely popular.

Dancla was renowned as a virtuoso almost exclusively in France, as he did not undertake concert tours abroad. Outside France, he was recognized mainly as a composer, particularly of orchestral and chamber works, in which he often employed polyphonic techniques and refined coloristic effects. His string quartets were once among the most widely circulated works in Europe.

Literature: Ch. Dancla Notes et souvenirs, autobiography, Paris 1893, 2nd ed. 1898 (includes a list of Dancla’s works).