André Gedalge was an influential French composer and teacher.

Biography

André Gedalge was born at 75 rue des Saints-Pères, in Paris, where he first worked as a bookseller and editor specializing in livres de prix for public schools. During this time he published books by Marie Laubot and Edmond About for the Librairie Gedalge.

In 1886, at the age of 28, he entered the Paris Conservatory. In that same year he won the Second Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

. He studied under Ernest Guiraud

Ernest Guiraud

Ernest Guiraud was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann .- Biography :Guiraud began his schooling in Louisiana under the...

, professor of counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 and fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

, who had also been Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

's teacher.

In 1891, Gedalge composed the score for le Petit Savoyard, a pantomime in four acts performed at Les Nouveautés. In 1895, Pris au Piège was awarded the prix Cressant. In June 1900, his one act ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 Phoebé debuted at the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

. He composed Quatuor d'archet, les Vaux de Vire (a collection of melodies), children's songs, and three symphonies. These illustrated the proud motto that he followed: "Neither literature, nor painting", which defined "pure music". His Third Symphony in F Major and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (written in 1899) were considered masterpieces of French music.

In the years before World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Gedalge served as Mayor of Chessy

Chessy, Seine-et-Marne

Chessy is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located from the center of Paris....

, Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region.- History:Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution in application of the law of December 22, 1789...

, where he later died and was buried.

Teaching

He influenced many students of music, including André Bloch

André Bloch (composer)

André Bloch was a French composer and music educator. He studied with André Gedalge, Ernest Guiraud, and Jules Massenet at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1893 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Antigone which used a text by Ferdinand Beissier. The prize enabled him to pursue further studies...

, Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

, Claude Delvincourt

Claude Delvincourt

Claude Delvincourt was a French pianist and composer of classical music.-Biography:Delvincourt was born in Paris, the son of Pierre Delvincourt and Marguerite Fourès....

, Jean Roger-Ducasse

Jean Roger-Ducasse

Jean Jules Amable Roger-Ducasse was a French composer.-Biography:Jean Roger-Ducasse studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Emile Pessard and André Gedalge, and was the star pupil and close friend of Gabriel Fauré...

, Georges Enescu, Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...

, Jacques Ibert

Jacques Ibert

Jacques François Antoine Ibert was a French composer. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his first attempt, despite studies interrupted by his service in World War I.Ibert pursued a successful composing career,...

, Charles Koechlin

Charles Koechlin

Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. 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 , travelling, stereoscopic...

, Paul Ladmirault

Paul Ladmirault

Paul Ladmirault was a French composer whose music expressed his devotion to Brittany.-Life:Ladmirault was born in Nantes. A child prodigy, he learned piano, organ and violin from an early age. At the age of 8, he composed a sonata for violin and piano. At the age of fifteen, when still a student...

, Raoul Laparra, Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

, Max d'Ollone

Max d'Ollone

Maximilien-Paul-Marie-Félix d'Ollone was a French composer, born 13 June 1875 at Besançon and died in Paris 1959.He started composing very early, entering the Paris Conservatoire at 6, winning many prizes, receiving the encouragement of Gounod, Saint-Saens, Massenet, Thomas and Delibes...

, Henri Rabaud

Henri Rabaud

Henri Rabaud was a French conductor and composer, who held important posts in the French musical establishment and upheld mainly conservative trends in French music in the first half of the twentieth century....

, Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, and 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,...

.

He also wrote instructional works for students: "Treatise of the Fugue" ("Traité de la fugue", 1904), and a book on "The Instruction of Music by the Education of the Ear" ("l'Enseignement de la Musique par l'éducation de l'oreille", 1922).

He was relatively modest and, as such, did not garner a large reputation as an individual musician, but he greatly benefited from the wide recognition of his students. On the day after his death, it was written:

"He gave to his students the best part of himself: the knowledge, the understanding of man and the supreme gift that is goodness. It was sufficient that he had been poor and worthy of the name of musician for that he counselled, taught, and gave affectionate welcome not only to his class, but in the intimacy of his dwelling."

(See below for original quote.)

Original quotes

• « Il donnait à ses élèves le meilleur de lui-même : le savoir, la connaissance des hommes et ce don suprême qu'est la bonté. Il suffisait qu'un être fût pauvre et digne du nom de musicien pour qu'il trouvât conseils, leçons et affectueux accueil non seulement à sa classe, mais dans l'intimité de son logis ».

Selected compositions

• 4 Symphonies
• Piano Concerto
• String Quartet
• 2 Sonatas for violin and piano
• 70 Lieder
• Le Petit Savoyard, pantomime (1891)
• Hélène, drama (1893)
• 1895 Pris au piège, light opera
• 1899 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
• 1900 Phoebé, ballet

Writings

• 1901 Traité de la fugue
• 1922 l'Enseignement de la Musique par l'éducation de l'oreille

Discography

• André Gedalge - Pièces instrumentales et mélodies Geneviève Laurenceau, violin - Mario Hacquard, baritone - Lorène de Ratuld and Claude Collet, piano - Benny Sluchin, trombone - Antoine Curé, trumpet. CD Polymnie (2007)

External links

• MusiMem site on André Gedalge