Charles-Louis-Eugène Koechlin (; 27 November 186731 December 1950), commonly known as Charles Koechlin, was a French composer, teacher and musicologist. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars (especially Lilian Harvey and Ginger Rogers), traveling, stereoscopic photography and socialism. He once said: "The artist needs an ivory tower, not as an escape from the world, but as a place where he can view the world and be himself. This tower is for the artist like a lighthouse shining out across the world." Among his better known works is Les Heures persanes, a set of piano pieces based on the novel Vers Ispahan by Pierre Loti and The Seven Stars Symphony, a 7 movement symphony where each movement is themed around a different film star (all Silent era stars) who were popular at the time of the piece's writing (1933). Life Charles Koechlin was born in Paris and baptized Charles-Louis-Eugène Koechlin. He was the youngest child of a large family. His mother's family came from Alsace and he identified with that region; his maternal grandfather had been the noted philanthropist and textile manufacturer Jean Dollfus, and Koechlin inherited his strongly developed social conscience. His father died when he was 14. Despite an early interest in music, his family wanted him to become an engineer. He entered the École Polytechnique in 1887 but the following year was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to spend six months recuperating in Algeria. He ended up having to do his first year at the École over again and graduated with only mediocre grades. After a struggle with his family and private lessons with Charles-Édouard Lefebvre he entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1890, studying first with Antoine Taudou for harmony. In 1892 he started studying composition with Jules Massenet, fugue and counterpoint with André Gedalge, and music history with Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray. His fellow students included George Enescu, Ernest Le Grand, Reynaldo Hahn, Max d'Ollone, Henri Rabaud and Florent Schmitt. From 1896 he was a student of Gabriel Fauré, along with Maurice Ravel and Jean Roger-Ducasse. Fauré had a great influence on Koechlin, who wrote the first Fauré biography (1927), which is still referred to. In 1898 a grateful Koechlin orchestrated the popular suite from Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande and in 1900 assisted Fauré in producing