Michel Magne , born March 20, 1930 in Lisieux (Calvados) and died December 19, 1984 in Cergy (Val-d'Oise), is a composer, French musician and performer.
Composer of French film music essential in the 1960s and 1970s. Classically trained, but with a very open musical spirit, he moved from concrete music to variety (he accompanied notably Henri Salvador), then to film music with 73 original soundtracks. One owes him in particular A monkey in winter, the series of Angélique, The Tontons flingueurs, The Barbouzes, Fantômas, Melody in basement, Galia, The Monocle laughs yellow, and the music of the first films of Jean Yanne (Everyone there is beautiful, everyone is nice, Me y'en want pennies, The Chinese in Paris) ... and also once the credits of the show Five columns to the front.
In 1962, he bought the castle of Hérouville in the Val-d'Oise>. In 1969, a fire in the left wing destroyed all the soundtracks of his works, of which he has no copy. This event is terrible for the composer. He still decides to recreate the lost works. For that, he needs a working tool. In the same year, after lengthy renovations, he set up a professional recording studio in the large attic on the right wing of his house. He thus invented the concept of a residential studio, which has since been much imitated, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon countries (The Manor for example)>. Considering his growing investment in perfectionism, he decided to make it a commercial structure. After a modest beginning, following T. Rex, many bands and artists will record at home, such as Pink Floyd (Obscured by Clouds), Grateful Dead, Bee Gees, Michel Polnareff, David Bowie, Claude Nougaro, Jacques Higelin , Saint-Preux, Adamo, Nicoletta, Elton John, Alan Stivell>, Angel (The Harlequin's Cemetery), Once upon a time, etc., and make the recording studio Michel Magne> in Hérouville the place of registration at fashion for the biggest bands of the time.
Magne is not a manager. His generosity, the lavish reception he gives to artists coming to his home finally lead him to bankruptcy. He is forced to give up the castle and go into exile in the south of France. Ruminating on this failure, he does not recover from the feeling of having been unjustly robbed of an essential part of his life. He commits suicide with barbiturates on December 19, 1984, in a room at the Novotel Cergy-Pontoise before the hearing at the Commercial Court which would definitively put an end to his career. His ashes are deposited in the box n> 1289 of the columbarium of the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
