In 1918 he graduated from the Ecole Nouvelle in Chailly near Lausanne, and entered the École Polytechnique in Paris, but quit and volunteered to serve in the Russian army's expedition corps.
Three works were premiered in 2011 : “Night Rides” for the London Sinfonietta; “No Man’s Land”, to a text by Christopher Reid, for the City of London Sinfonia with soloists Ian Bostridge and Roderick Williams; and “Grand Barcarolle” for the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly as part of their Beethoven cycle presented in Leipzig, Vienna, Paris and London in autumn 2011.