Grove Music Online

Guilmant, (Félix) Alexandre

Andrew Thomson

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11996
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

(b Boulogne-sur-Mer, March 12, 1837; d Meudon, March 29, 1911).

French organist, teacher, composer and editor. He was the son of
Jean-Baptiste Guilmant, organist of St Nicolas, Boulogne, who was
his first teacher; he also received harmony lessons from Gustav
Carulli. Devoted to the organ from an early age, he set himself an
unremitting regime of practice, composition and studying treatises.
At 16 he had become organist of St Joseph, and two years later his
first Messe solemnelle in F was performed at St Nicolas. Soon his
musical activities broadened to include teaching solfège at the Ecole
Communale de Musique, playing the viola in the Société
Philharmonique, and establishing an Orphéon that won a number of
prizes. In 1860 he went to Brussels to study with the organist J.N.
Lemmens, purportedly the inheritor of the authentic tradition of J.S.
Bach. Numerous opportunities to inaugurate new organs followed,
above all those of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in Paris at St Sulpice in
1862, and at Notre Dame in 1868. His meteoric rise gained him the
prestigious post at La Trinité in 1871.

Thereafter, Paris became the hub of his activities; in 1878 his

additional appointment as resident organist of the Palais du
Trocadéro – also equipped with a magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ –
encouraged him to pursue a parallel career as a concert recitalist,
enabling him to popularize and broaden the organ repertory. His
work editing and publishing the then forgotten works of such early
composers as Titelouze, Grigny, Clérambault and Couperin, together
with an insatiable curiosity regarding the music of his
contemporaries, including Liszt, Schumann, Rheinberger, Franck,
Saint-Saëns, Widor and S.S. Wesley, produced a performing
repertory of unparalleled breadth. His programmes also included
Handel’s organ concertos with orchestra, and Berlioz and Wagner
transcriptions. Guilmant’s phenomenal energy impelled him to
undertake regular extensive recital tours throughout mainland
Europe, Britain and America, making a particular impact in the
English-speaking world with his catholic breadth of taste, and
versatility in managing a large range of instruments.

Guilmant’s excellently formed playing technique was characterized

by complete precision and rhythmic clarity; he was also an
imaginative but disciplined colourist with registration. He succeeded
Widor as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire (1896–1911),
where his pupils included Marcel Dupré, Nadia Boulanger, Clarence

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 Eddy and William C. Carl. In 1894 he joined Vincent d’Indy and
Charles Bordes in founding the Schola Cantorum, an educational
establishment intended to continue the tradition of Franck. As part
of its early music programme, he played the organ in d’Indy’s
historic 1904 revival of Monteverdi’s Orfeo.

Guilmant’s own large output for the organ includes eight attractive
sonatas which, if much less original and exploratory than Widor’s
organ symphonies, have at least the merit of greater accessibility.
Yet striking passages can be found, notably the impressionistic
stream of dominant 7th chords in the Seventh Sonata’s Lento assai,
reflecting his broad-minded approval of Debussy’s then controversial
Pelléas et Mélisande. He also wrote ‘La musique d’orgue: les formes,
l’exécution, l’improvisation’ (printed in EMDC, II/ii (1926), 1125–80).

Works

Instrumental

8 sonatas, org

no.1, d, op.42 (1875)

no.2, D, op.50 (1883)

no.3, c, op.56 (1883)

no.4, d, op.61 (1885)

no.5, c, op.80 (1885)

no.6, b, op.86 (1897)

no.7, F, op.89 (1902)

no.8, A, op.91 (?1912)

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 Org, Orchestral

Sym. no.1, op.42 (1879)

Marche-fantaisie, op.44 (1886)

Méditation sur le Stabat mater, op.63 (1886)

Final alla Schumann, op.83 (1897)

Sym. no.2, op.91 (1911)

Org collections

L’organiste practique (1874–83) [12 bks]

Pièces de différents styles pour orgue (1869–1912) [18 bks]

L’organiste liturgiste, op.65 (1887–99) [10 bks]

18 pièces nouvelles pour orgue (1914)

Other insts

Idylle, pf (1872)

Pauline polka, pf (1872)

Prière, vc, vn (1873)

Mazurka de salon, hmn (1874)

Mélodie, vn, pf, hmn (1880)

2 romances sans paroles, vc/vn, op.67 (1888)

Chant du matin, pf (1911)

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 Vocal

Messe solemnelle; Echos du mois de Marie (1875)

12 motets, 1/2/3/4vv, org/hmn (1876)

Motets, solo vv, org (1874–94)

Ariane, symphonie-cantate (c1890)

Ecce panis, op.66 (c1890)

O salutaris, op.37 (1895)

Mass no.1, solo vv, chorus, orch/org, op.6 (1887)

Mass, 4 vv, chorus, orch/org, op.11 (1865)

Balthazar, scène lyrique, soloists, chorus, orch (1879)

Couronnement de Notre Dame de Boulogne-sur-mer, 1v,

chorus, orch, op.62 (1885)

Christus vincit, chorus, orch, hps, org, op.64 (1886)

Editions

André Campra: Tancrède, tragédie (Paris, 1882)

André Campra: Les festes vénitiennes, opéra-ballet (Paris,

1883)

Ecole classique de l'orgue (Paris, 1898–1903)

Archives des maîtres des 16e, 17e, 18e siècles (Paris, 1898–
1914)

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 Bibliography
FétisB

FétisBS

‘The Guilmant Organ Recitals’, The Organ, 2 (1893–4),

116

C. Dickinson: ‘Appreciations of Alexandre Guilmant’, The

Musician, 16 (1911), 488

W.C. Carl: ‘Guilmant’s Contribution to Organ Music and

Organ Playing’, The Musician, 17 (1912), 202

V. d’Indy: La Schola cantorum en 1925 (Paris, 1927)

W.C. Carl: ‘Alexandre Guilmant: Noted Figure Viewed 25

Years after Death’, The Diapason, 27/7 (1936), 4 only

W.C. Carl: ‘Guilmant on Organ Music – his Ideal Home Life

– his Death in 1911’, The Diapason, 27/9 (1936), 8 only

L. Vierne: Mes souvenirs (Paris, 1939)

L. Vierne: ‘Journal’, L’orgue, no.135b (1970), 1–185

N. Dufourcq: La musique d’orgue française de Jean

Titelouze à Jehan Alain (Paris, 1941, 2/1949)

M. Dupré: Marcel Dupré raconte (Paris, 1972)

L. Archbold and W.J. Peterson, eds.: French Organ Music:

from the Revolution to Franck and Widor (Rochester, NY,
1995)

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