Biography
Chailley received instruction from Boulanger, Marc de Ranse, Delvincourt, and Busser. At the same time he pursued specialized research into medieval polyphonic music, which prompted him to establish the vocal ensemble Psallette Notre Dame. He joined the Paris Conservatoire faculty in 1937 as vocal-ensemble professor and subsequently held appointments as professor of music history at the Sorbonne and director of the Institute of Music of Paris. Modal idioms drawn from Gregorian chant and French folk music formed one pole of his compositional language, while a systematic use of the first 13 harmonics supplied the other. Chailley numbered among the earliest composers to adopt the ondes martenot and to produce unaccompanied monody; both traits converge in the 1954 opera Thyl de Flandre.