Léon Boëllmann was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 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...

 of Alsatian

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 origin, known for a small number of compositions for organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

. His best-known composition is Suite Gothique

Suite Gothique

Suite Gothique is a suite for organ composed by Léon Boëllmann in 1895.The suite consists of four movements:# Introduction - Choral # Menuet Gothique # Prière à Notre-Dame # Toccata...

(1895), still very much a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its dramatic concluding Toccata

Toccata

Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...

.

Biography

The son of a pharmacist, Boëllmann was born in Ensisheim

Ensisheim

Ensisheim is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.On 7 November 1492, a 250 pound meteorite fell there, and since then it has attracted many meteorite enthusiasts. It was described in detail by the contemporary poet Sebastian Brant.Ensisheim is also the birthplace...

, Haut-Rhin

Haut-Rhin

Haut-Rhin is a département of the Alsace region of France, named after the Rhine river. Its name means Upper Rhine. Haut-Rhin is the smaller and less populated of the two departements of Alsace, although is still densely populated compared to the rest of France.-Subdivisions:The department...

. In 1871, at the age of nine, he entered the Ecole de Musique Classique et Religieuse (L'École Niedermeyer

Louis Niedermeyer

Abraham Louis Niedermeyer was a composer chiefly of church music but also of a few operas, and a teacher who took over the Ecole Choron, duly renamed École Niedermeyer, a school for the study and practice of church music, where several eminent French musicians studied including Gabriel Fauré and...

) 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...

, where he studied with its director, Gustave Lefèvre, and with Eugène Gigout

Eugène Gigout

Eugène Gigout was a French organist and a composer of European late-romantic music for organ.-Biography:Gigout was born in Nancy, and died in Paris....

. Boëllmann there won first prizes in piano, organ, counterpoint, fugue, plainsong, and composition. After his graduation in 1881, Boëllmann was hired as sub-organist at the Church of St. Vincent de Paul

Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church, Paris

The Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul is a church in the 10e arrondissement of Paris dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul. It gives its name to the Quartier Saint-Vincent-de-Paul around it.-History:...

 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, and six years later he became cantor and "organiste titulaire," a position he held until his early death, probably from tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

.

In 1885, Boëllmann married Louise, the daughter of Gustave Lefèvre and the niece of Eugène Gigout, into whose house the couple moved. (Having no children of his own, Gigout adopted Boëllmann.) Boëllmann then taught in Gigout's school of organ playing and improvisation. After Boëllmann's death, and the death of his wife the following year, Gigout reared their three orphans, one of whom, Marie-Louise Boëllmann-Gigout (1891-1977), became a noted organ teacher in her own right.

As a favored student of Gigout, Boëllmann moved in the best circles of the French musical world, and as a pleasing personality, he made friends of many artists and was able to give concerts both in Paris and the provinces. Boëllmann became known as "a dedicated teacher, trenchant critic, gifted composer and successful performer...who coaxed pleasing sounds out of recalcitrant instruments." Boëllmann also wrote musical criticism for L'art musical under the pseudonym "le Révérend Père Léon" and "un Garçon de la salle Pleyel."

During the sixteen years of his professional life, Boëllmann composed about 160 pieces in all genres. Faithful to the style of Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

 and an admirer of Saint-Saëns, Boëllmann yet exhibits a turn-of-the-century Post-romantic

Post-romanticism

Post-romanticism or Postromanticism refers to a range of cultural products and attitudes emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after the period of Romanticism....

 esthetic, which especially in his organ works, demonstrates "remarkable sonorities." His best-known composition is Suite Gothique

Suite Gothique

Suite Gothique is a suite for organ composed by Léon Boëllmann in 1895.The suite consists of four movements:# Introduction - Choral # Menuet Gothique # Prière à Notre-Dame # Toccata...

(1895), now a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its concluding Toccata

Toccata

Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...

, a piece "of moderate difficulty but brilliant effect," with a dramatic minor theme (which, unusually, takes place in the pedals), and a rhythmic emphasis that made it popular even in Boëllmann's own day. Boëllmann also wrote motet

Motet

In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

s and art song

Art song

An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs....

s, works for piano, a symphony, works for cello and orchestra and for organ and orchestra, a cello sonata (dedicated to Jules Delsart

Jules Delsart

Jules Delsart was a 19th-century French cellist and teacher. He is best known for his arrangement for cello and piano of César Franck's Violin Sonata in A major...

), and other chamber works.

Compositions

Organ

• Douze pièces, 1890
• Suite Gothique
  Suite Gothique
  Suite Gothique is a suite for organ composed by Léon Boëllmann in 1895.The suite consists of four movements:# Introduction - Choral # Menuet Gothique # Prière à Notre-Dame # Toccata...
  
  , Op. 25 1895
• Deuxième suite, Op. 27 1896
• Les heures mystiques, Opp.29/30 1896
• Ronde Française, Op. 37 (arr. Choisnel)
• Offertoire sur les Noëls
• Fantaisie

External links

• Concise biography of Boëllmann (same as link above but translated with Google into English)
• Detailed biography with some images
• Detailed biography with some images (same link as above, but translated with Google into English)
• Leon Boëllmann Piano Quartet, Op.10 & Piano Trio, Op.19 Sound-bites
• Verset de procession, for organ (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)