Albert Lavignac was a French music scholar, known for his essays on theory, and a minor composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Biography

Lavignac was borin in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and studied with Antoine François Marmontel

Antoine François Marmontel

Antoine François Marmontel was a French pianist, teacher and musicographer.Marmontel entered the Paris Conservatory in 1827. His teachers were Pierre Zimmerman in pianoforte, Victor Dourlen in harmony, Jacques Fromental Halévy in fugue and Jean-François Le Sueur in composition...

, François Benoist

François Benoist

François Benoist was a French organist, composer, and pedagogue.Benoist was born in Nantes. He studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris and won the Prix de Rome in 1815 for his cantata Œnone. In 1819, he became organist and professor of organ at the Conservatoire; he held the latter post for...

 and Ambroise Thomas

Ambroise Thomas

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.-Biography:"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas."- Emmanuel Chabrier-Early life...

 at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

, where later he taught harmony. Among his pupils were Henri Casadesus

Henri Casadesus

Henri Casadesus was a violist and music publisher. He was the brother of Marius Casadesus, uncle of the famous pianist Robert Casadesus, and granduncle of Jean Casadesus....

, Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

, Philipp Jarnach

Philipp Jarnach

Philipp Jarnach was considered in the 1920s to be one of the most important composers of modern music....

, Gabriel Pierné

Gabriel Pierné

Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné was a French composer, conductor, and organist.-Biography:Gabriel Pierné was born in Metz in 1863. His family moved to Paris to escape the Franco-Prussian War. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining first prizes for solfège, piano, organ, counterpoint and fugue...

, Amédée Gastoué, Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt was a French composer.-Early life:A Lorrainer, born in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Schmitt originally took music lessons in Nancy with the local composer Gustave Sandré. Subsequently he entered the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied with Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, Théodore Dubois,...

, and Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

.

In March 1864, at the age of eighteen, he conducted from the harmonium

Harmonium

A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...

 the private premiere of Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle

Petite Messe Solennelle

Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle was written in 1863, "the last", the composer called it, "of my péchés de vieillesse" .....

.

His condensed work, La Musique et les Musiciens, an overview of musical grammar and materials, continued to be reprinted years after his death. In it he characterised the particular characteristics of instruments and of each key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

, somewhat in the way Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

 had done:

• B major
  B major
  In music theory, B major is a major scale based on B. The pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A are all part of the B major scale. Its key signature has five sharps....
  
  : Energetic
• E major
  E major
  E major is a major scale based on E, with the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps .Its relative minor is C-sharp minor, and its parallel minor is E minor....
  
  : Radiant, warm, joyous
• A major
  A major
  A major is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps.Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor...
  
  : Frank, sonorous
• D major
  D major
  D major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....
  
  : Joyful, brilliant, alert
• G major
  G major
  G major is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp, F; in treble-clef key signatures, the sharp-symbol for F is usually placed on the first line from the top, though in some Baroque music it is placed on the first space from the bottom...
  
  : Rural, merry
• C major
  C major
  C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....
  
  : Simple, naive, commonplace
• F major
  F major
  F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...
  
  : Pastoral, rustic
• B-flat major: Noble and elegant, graceful
• E-flat major: Vigorous, chivalrous
• A-flat major: Gentle, caressing, or pompous
• D-flat major: Charming, suave, placid
• G-flat major: Gentle and calm
• G-sharp minor: Very sombre
• C-sharp minor: Brutal, sinister, or very sombre
• F-sharp minor: Rough, or light, aerial
• B minor
  B minor
  B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. The harmonic minor raises the A to A. Its key signature has two sharps .Its relative major is D major, and its parallel major is B major....
  
  : Savage or sombre but vigorous
• E minor
  E minor
  E minor is a minor scale based on the note E. The E natural minor scale consists of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. The E harmonic minor scale contains the natural 7, D, rather than the flatted 7, D – to align with the major dominant chord, B7 .Its key signature has one sharp, F .Its...
  
  : Sad, agitated
• A minor
  A minor
  A minor is a minor scale based on A, consisting of the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G...
  
  : Simple, naive, sad, rustic
• D minor
  D minor
  D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. In the harmonic minor, the C is raised to C. Its key signature has one flat ....
  
  : Serious, concentrated
• G minor
  G minor
  G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. For the harmonic minor scale, the F is raised to F. Its relative major is B-flat major, and its parallel major is G major....
  
  : Melancholy, shy
• C minor
  C minor
  C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...
  
  : Gloomy, dramatic, violent
• F minor
  F minor
  F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. The harmonic minor raises the E to E. Its key signature has four flats ....
  
  : Morose, surly, or energetic
• B-flat minor: Funeral or mysterious
• E-flat minor: Profoundly sad

His more popularized works discussed the music dramas of Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, summarised in Le Voyage artistique à Bayreuth.

Selected works

Lavignac edited the compendious .

• (1882)
• (1889)
• (1895) Translated into English, 1905
• (1897) An analysis of Wagner's leitmotif
  Leitmotif
  A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
  
  s.

External links