The life of French harpsichordist Huguette Dreyfus, Part 1: Genesis of an artist

Sally Gordon-Mark

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician—her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, remaining a devoted friend until Huguette passed away.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She also taught piano privately and at the British School of Paris on a regular basis. In September 2020 she settled in Perugia, Italy. In May 2023 Sally will be the guest editor of the British Harpsichord Society’s e-magazine Sounding Board, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. For more information: www.sallygordonmark.com.

Read Part 1 here.

You had to be crazy to want a career. It was impossible to see what the possibilities were.

—Huguette Dreyfus¹

In 1950 Huguette Dreyfus was finding it difficult without a harpsichord of her own, a situation making it expensive to practice—a crucial problem in her case, since, like others in her generation, her training had been on the piano. She had just discovered the harpsichord in her first year (1949–1950) of Norbert Dufourcq’s music history class at the Paris Conservatory, then located on rue de Madrid. That year, he focused on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and Pleyel loaned him a harpsichord for his classroom. He also created an unofficial harpsichord class at the conservatory, taught by his former student, Jacqueline Masson. To practice, Huguette rented a rehearsal room upstairs in the Salle Pleyel concert hall, at 8:00 a.m. several days a week.²

During Ruggero Gerlin’s summer classes at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, which she attended from 1953 through 1959, Huguette was always among the few students who were invited to perform a short program in the end-of-term concerts in September. Finding time to rehearse on the class harpsichord, a contemporary one with pedals by an obscure Italian maker named Cella, was difficult because it was shared by all of Ruggero Gerlin’s students, so Huguette resorted to practicing discreetly during the Italian siesta from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.³

Huguette conferred with her mother Marguerite and her brother Pierre, knowing that it would be too expensive for the now fatherless family⁴ to purchase a new harpsichord. Her brother asked a friend who frequented auction houses to let him know if a double-manual harpsichord ever came up for sale. Nothing happened for a long time. Then in late 1957, Pierre found what was purported to be an original eighteenth-century Nicolas Blanchet double-manual harpsichord in a shop specializing in eighteenth-century French antiques—probably Maurice Bensimon’s at 5 rue Royale in Paris. Little was known about the instrument, except that it had once been in the collection of Raymond Russell. It was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in June 1956 to Pelham Galleries in London, and according to the gallery owner’s son, Alan Rubin, Bensimon was a client of Pelham’s.⁵

On January 16, 1958, Huguette flew to London to accompany violinist Madeleine Massart in a concert the next day at the French Institute. She may have met with Raymond Russell, because his address is noted in her agenda. Before flying home on January 25, she went to see the instrument collections at Fenton House and the Victoria & Albert Museum, for which Russell had recently written the catalogs. It is not known when her harpsichord was delivered or from where, but her agenda reveals that in March she was frequently in touch with Marcel Asseman, the harpsichord technician for Pleyel, Erard, and the Salle Gaveau. He worked on the instrument, but it is not known what he did.⁶ In an interview, Huguette admitted that when she first touched its keys, after having played Pleyel and Neupert harpsichords, she wondered how she would ever be able to play “the beast.” It had plectra made of plumes, making for a different attack. Huguette adapted to it: “This historical instrument was a good teacher for me. It completely changed my touch.”⁷

Huguette entered the international music competition in Geneva, Switzerland, in March 1958, and soon after gave her first radio interview on a French program, La Discothèque classique, which aired on July 29. She went to Siena as usual for her summer classes with Ruggero Gerlin at the Accademia Chigiana, and from there went directly to Geneva. 

The 14th Concours d’exécution musicale opened on September 20, 1958. Huguette arrived there alone and exhausted, and she could not speak at all as she had laryngitis. Seven harpsichord contestants had signed up—four women, three men. The first round was on stage with no audience. The players were separated by a curtain from the jury, composed of Isabelle Nef, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Thurston Dart, Ruggero Gerlin, Aimée Van de Wiele, Eta Harich-Schneider, and Eduard Müller. (With the exception of Dart and Müller, with whom Gustav Leonhardt had studied for a year, all had been students of Wanda Landowska.) The players were instructed to remain still and silent. Jill Severs, also a contestant, remembers that one of the men wore velvet slippers for playing the pedals. Huguette played a Bach prelude and fugue on a Neupert. Its sonority disturbed her, and she realized during the fugue that a coupler had been left only halfway in position. But, by listening to the music and playing with total concentration, Huguette maintained her composure.

The second round took place on October 1 at 2:00 p.m. in the conservatory auditorium. Huguette, the only remaining contestant, played before a paying audience a program of obligatory pieces by Bach, Scarlatti, and Rameau, finishing with three Mikrokosmos pieces by Bartók. The last round, a public recital, took place on October 3 in Victoria Hall:

Miss Dreyfus (France), harpsichordist, opened the round with the Concerto in G Major of Haydn, which seemed Lilliputian in the nave of Victoria Hall. Meticulous performance, faultless register, sometimes too weak given the surroundings, and a little prosaic over all.⁸

There was no winner in the harpsichord competition that year, but Huguette did receive a silver medal. Nonetheless, she was invited to perform in a concert of laureates in her hometown of Mulhouse on October 10, 1958. She received 10,000 francs for her performance of the Haydn Concerto in G. The fact that she did not win first prize did not diminish the attention that her distinction in the competition brought her. In her biography, the silver medal eventually metamorphosed into a gold one or a first prize, possibly at the insistence of her record labels because of the crucial importance given to credentials in France. 

Huguette continued traveling to Siena for summer lessons with Gerlin through 1959. On September 13, 1955, she and Jill Severs, who, like Huguette, had been coming since 1953, performed a four-hand piece written by Ferenc Sulvok, a Hungarian composition student at the Academy that summer. Another classmate was Kenneth Gilbert; the three became lifelong friends. Normally, the courses were limited to four summers, but on July 16, 1957, Gerlin wrote to Huguette, “Two words quickly to let you know that I obtained authorization from the Academy to bring back my former students to continue taking my courses for an unlimited number of times!”⁹ He invited her and Sylvie Spycket to attend and said he was happy to have acquired a Neupert harpsichord for Bach’s music, which delighted the students, too, because the Cella had been a difficult instrument to play expressively due to its hard touch.¹⁰

At the time, the important harpsichordists in France were Pauline Aubert, Marcelle Charbonnier, Marcelle Delacour, Marguérite Roesgen-Champion, Aimée Van de Wiele, and Robert Veyron-Lacroix, who played Pleyel or other contemporary harpsichords. Copies of historical harpsichords were not being made then in France. In October 1959, Huguette started meeting regularly with Michel Bernstein, founder of Valois Records and later Astrée, which specialized in early music played on period instruments. It was her former professor of musical aesthetics, Alexis Roland-Manuel, who had told Bernstein about Huguette. She invited Bernstein to her apartment so she could play her own harpsichord for him. Bernstein was dazzled; he had never heard a period harpsichord before. He asked her to sign a contract with Valois, one of the first record labels—along with Erato, Harmonia Mundi (France), and Archiv—founded after the first vinyl LP record had been invented in 1948.¹¹

There were reservations on Huguette’s part as to whether she was ready to record, but Gerlin encouraged her to go ahead and would help her by giving her extra lessons in Paris. On February 3, 1960, Huguette gave her first solo performance on the radio in the ensemble Norbert Dufourcq created, Histoire et Musique, composed of interested musicians and former students. With an immense and inspiring enthusiasm, Dufourcq presented the program: 

We and our young artists are hunting for early music manuscripts, hidden among thousands of documents, to get them published. What a joy it is for us! . . . I have tried to impart to my students the noble objective of reconstituting and reviving this music from texts that we have to transcribe.¹²

This is exactly what Huguette did; she played six pieces by D’Agincourt, which had not been published since 1733. 

Between April 26 and 28, 1960, Huguette recorded her first LPs for Valois in Copenhagen on a Bengaard harpsichord with pedals, which was felt by Michel Bernstein and Huguette to have the closest sound to a period one. François Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin, Livre II, sixième et onzième ordres (Valois, MB 798) was released in 1962 and received the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros, the first of many prizes her albums would receive.

Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin by Jean-Philippe Rameau (Valois, MB 920) followed that year. The LP received a favorable review in one of France’s leading newspapers:

On an excellent modern harpsichord of Danish fabrication, Huguette Dreyfus plays the Nouvelles Suites de pièces written for the harpsichord by J.-P. Rameau. Huguette Dreyfus is one of the rare contemporary virtuosos who know how to draw out of the harpsichord all its resources of sound and plunge the listener into the true atmosphere of compositions from the past.¹³

Huguette made her first appearance on national French television, resplendent in an eighteenth-century dress and wig, on March 30, 1961. In the program, Voyage au pays de la musique, she played La Poule by Rameau.¹⁴ Soon afterwards, Huguette played her first solo recital on April 7, 1961, in Lyon’s Salle Witkowski and received an enthusiastic review in a local newspaper:

Miss Huguette Dreyfus gave to her audience (more numerous than had been hoped for) a beautiful harpsichord recital (of music by Chambonnières, François Couperin, J. S. Bach, and Scarlatti). . . . Miss Dreyfus revealed herself as the most exquisite and energetic of harpsichordists. Faultless technique, quivering sensitivity, elegant style, and continual accuracy.¹⁵

In 1962 she met a harpsichord maker from Grasse, Claude Mercier-Ythier, who had just opened a shop and studio in Paris specializing entirely in the sale and rental of harpsichords, À la corde pincée, the first of its kind in France since the French Revolution. It was a pivotal meeting for both, as their amicable professional association would last over forty-five years. At the time, he represented the harpsichord manufacturer Neupert, a competitor of Pleyel that gradually stopped making harpsichords by the early 1960s. Claude restored a 1754 Henri Hemsch that would become Huguette’s favorite performing instrument for concerts, summer workshops, and recordings. When Huguette toured in Europe, he often traveled with her, bringing an instrument, as Huguette never traveled with her own. Claude enjoyed telling the story of having saved Huguette on tour, when the man next to her grabbed her skirt under the dinner table and would not let go when she got up to leave.¹⁶

Huguette’s career was blossoming that year; she was concertizing in France and abroad, and her first records were successful. During her long and rich career, Huguette would tour the United States, Canada, South America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan, and most of Europe. She would perform in concerts and on recordings with other illustrious artists and conductors, including friends and former students: András Adorján, Marie-Claire Alain, Olivier Baumont, Nadia Boulanger, Pierre Boulez, René Clemencic, Alfred Deller, Ruggero Gerlin, Marie-Claire Jamet, Christian Lardé (with whom she recorded twelve albums), Lily Laskine, Yannick Le Gaillard, Maxence Larrieu, Gaston Maugras, Eduard Melkus (ten albums), Yehudi Menuhin, Pierre Pierlot, Rafael Puyana, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Luciano Sgrizzi, Henryk Szeryng, Luigi Fernando Tagliavini, and Blandine Verlet.

The ensembles she performed in regularly included the Quatuor Instrumental de Lutèce with flautist Jacques Royer, oboist Emile Mayousse, and cellist Jean Deferrieux; Norbert Dufourcq’s ensemble, Musique et Histoire; the Paul Kuentz Orchestra; and the other principal Parisian orchestras: L’Orchestre Lamoureux, Le Collegium Musicum de Paris, directed by Roland Douatte, the bassoonist Fernand Oubradous’ chamber orchestra, and an ensemble that gave private concerts, Fiori musicali, created and conducted by Robert Dalsace.

On May 24, 1962, she and Christian Lardé played with Yehudi Menuhin in an ensemble directed by Nadia Boulanger,¹⁷ in a performance for the Singer-Polignac Foundation.¹⁸ It may be that Irene Kedroff, whose vocal class Huguette had accompanied for several years at the Ecole Normale de Musique, had recommended Huguette; she had been the soprano in a quartet directed by Nadia Boulanger for many years before World War II. On another occasion, in an undated letter to Huguette from her office in the Fontainebleau castle, Miss Boulanger invited her to perform in a tribute to architect Louis Le Vau by the Institut de France: “It would give me a particular pleasure to organize this concert with the gracious participation of a small group of eminent artists.”¹⁹

Huguette’s collaboration with orchestra conductor Paul Kuentz (in his 90s, he is still conducting his orchestra in Paris) gave another boost to her career—over a period of ten years, she was a featured soloist in his orchestra, going on her first tour in 1962. They performed throughout France and Belgium. The Festival Franco-Allemand de la Jeunesse took them to Cap d’Ail on the Côte d’Azur for three days in December. While Paul Kuentz’s orchestra was rehearsing, Jean Cocteau was decorating the outdoor amphitheater. In a friendly gesture, Cocteau designed the cover of their program and posed for a photograph with the orchestra.²⁰

In 1952, a Dominican priest named Henri Jarrié²¹ was appointed chaplain to the artists’ colony in Nice, where he knew Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Henri Matisse, and others. His love of music would have significant consequences for Huguette’s career in the 1960s. Being an amateur musician and composer, he supported the Fédération internationale des Jeunesses musicales by helping to organize concerts, such as those by the Kuentz Orchestra, and conference-concerts. In 1961, Father Jarrié became vicar of the Dominicans living in Saint-Maximin-La-Baume. The thirteenth-century Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene in Saint-Maximin is home to a magnificent and historic organ with 2,692 pipes, constructed in the late eighteenth century by Jean Esprit Isnard, a Dominican brother, and his nephew, Joseph. Father Jarrié and Dr. Pierre Rochas undertook raising the funds necessary for its restoration. Philippe Bardon, one of the students in Huguette’s final class at the Conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, now holds the title of organist at the basilica in Saint-Maximin.

The convent²² had been put up for sale by the Dominicans, and during the period in which it remained unsold, Father Jarrié opened its buildings to a summer academy and concerts. Dr. Rochas and others created the l’Académie d’été de l’orgue classique français, and Father Jarrié, with the collaboration of Bernard Coutaz, the founder of the record label Harmonia Mundi (France), created a series of concerts in the cloisters, which evolved into the annual festival, Les Soirées de musique française, the first opportunity for the modern French public to hear Baroque music.²³ Huguette regularly performed there, as did Eduard Melkus, Christian Lardé, Marie-Claire Jamet, and other eminent artists. In the audiences were intellectuals and artists who flocked to the convent every year, and this certainly helped her and others become known in the 1960s. Alfred Deller, signed to Harmonia Mundi, and Huguette performed a program of English Baroque music one year. In 1971, Father Jarrié left the priesthood to become a music teacher, giving Huguette a harpsichord piece that he had composed for her, Trois plaisanteries.²⁴

In 1963, Huguette and the Kuentz orchestra toured Canada and the eastern United States, performing mostly for universities. In the orchestra the year before, she had met flautist Christian Lardé, and they formed a trio with Jean Lamy on viola da gamba. They performed in concerts and recorded for Valois, with frequent appearances on radio and television. Their LP, Pièces de clavecin en concerts by Rameau (Valois, MB 798), released in 1963, received the Grand Prix de l’Académie du Disque Français and the Grand Prix des Discophiles in 1964. By then, Huguette had already recorded fifteen albums released on the labels Valois, Erato, and Harmonia Mundi, the latter two acting as distributors for Valois.²⁵

In 1965 Huguette met Eduard Melkus²⁶ during her first summer of teaching at the Summer Organ Academy of Classical French Music²⁷ in Saint-Maximin-La-Baume, which also offered workshops in harpsichord, flute, and chamber music. During the 1950s, the Viennese violinist had been one of a group of Austrian musicians and composers who, under the influence of Josef Mertin, professor at the Vienna Musikhochschule, created the Originalklangbewegung or “original sound movement.” This group also included René Clemencic, founder of the ensemble Musica Antiqua in 1958. The movement would influence Gustav Leonhardt, then a professor at the Vienna Music Academy, and Nikolaus and Alice Harnoncourt, all of whom Melkus, also a professor at the Academy, introduced to Mertin. 

Eduard had come to Saint-Maximin with his friend Lionel Rogg; the two were recording an LP together, Sonates galantes, for Harmonia Mundi, which had a recording studio in the convent. Huguette passed by during a rehearsal, they introduced each other, and she and Eduard ended up improvising. Out of this spontaneous combustion came a professional partnership that spanned over forty years and a close friendship that would last for the rest of Huguette’s life. They would regularly perform together in France, Austria, and abroad. She would often be a guest soloist with his chamber orchestra, the Capella Academica Wien, performing in Vienna’s prestigious Albertina Museum concert hall. Among the thirteen albums they recorded together were the “Mystery Sonatas” by Biber and award-winning LPs of Haydn trios that were recorded in Vienna, Huguette playing a historic fortepiano from Paul Badura-Skoda’s collection.²⁸

In 1967, the head of Valois Records, Michel Bernstein, launched a promotional campaign for his agents, announcing:

Since the artist’s career is becoming more and more international, and (her) records have received excellent reviews everywhere and are retransmitted on national radio, we are organizing a month of a Promotion Huguette Dreyfus, which will last from May 1st until the 31st 1967. Everyone knows Huguette Dreyfus counts among the four or five greatest harpsichordists in the world, alongside Kirkpatrick, Puyana, Malcolm and Ružicková. And on a purely national level, there’s no artist her equal.²⁹

That year, Huguette’s career was soaring, but the happiness that its success brought her was shattered by the sudden premature death of her beloved brother Pierre on May 2. He was only forty-six, and they had been very close. A surgeon, he had a sudden heart attack during an operation. Six months later, her mother passed away at the age of sixty-five. Huguette carried on with her busy schedule, but it took a long time for her to recover from her grief. She would spend the rest of her life in the apartment on Quai d’Orsay by Pont Alma that her father had purchased for the family in 1949.³⁰ At some point, she made the difficult decision not to marry, convinced that marriage was incompatible with a career, perhaps impossible if she were to have children.

The 1970s would be the apogee of the harpsichord renaissance in France. “Standing room only” was commonplace. People would wait two hours in line and still be content if they could stand in the back when all the seats were taken.³¹ The City of Paris hosted the annual Festival Estival de Paris and the semi-annual Concours international pour clavecin. In 1974, the Forum international du clavecin, sponsored by the Festival Estival, took place in Paris, featuring harpsichord makers and artists; among the soloists were Huguette, her former student Blandine Verlet, and Rafaël Puyana.³² Huguette sat on the jury of the concours many times, along with other distinguished harpsichordists like Kenneth Gilbert, Zuzana Ružicková, Scott Ross, and Rafaël Puyana.

In 1971 she left Valois Records to sign with Archiv, Eduard Melkus’s record label, which had released their recording of the Biber sonatas. He encouraged her to do so. One of her motives was her belief that she would have the chance to record Bach’s keyboard pieces in their entirety.³³ But it was her friend Zuzana Ružicková who had been given that opportunity by Erato.³⁴ Michel Bernstein would always remain bitter about what he considered her betrayal.³⁵ Huguette maintained that she had not abandoned him, that it was a reasonable decision in light of the evolution of her career. Valois, a small company, did not have its own distribution network and could not afford her the same benefits as Archiv, the early music division of its parent company, Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, Deutsche Grammophon being its classical division.

In May 1973, Huguette performed in the Fifth International Harpsichord Festival in Rome. It was a prestigious event; its concerts in the Basilica of Saint Cecilia were given by some of the twentieth century’s greatest harpsichordists: Huguette, William Christie, Gustav Leonhardt, Colin Tilney, and Kenneth Gilbert. The following year, Henryk Szeryng personally telephoned Huguette to invite her to go on tour with him in Italy in May. Because Szeryng was an international celebrity, Huguette was billed as his accompanist, and his agent accordingly booked her into an inferior hotel. Szeryng was outraged and covered the expense himself for her to have a room in his own hotel.³⁶

Huguette’s student and eventual close friend, Yannick Guillou, was on holiday in Venice then, and they all enjoyed meals and museum visits together. The last day, Guillou went to the hotel to say goodbye while Huguette and Szeryng were preparing to leave for Rome. Someone at the reception desk told Guillou that Szeryng wanted to see him: “I went up and found this master whom I’d venerated since my youth (. . .) dressed only in his shoes, black socks, underpants, and a towel around his neck.”

Szeryng dictated a press release to him, announcing that the City of Venice had made him a Commanditore, telling him to deliver it the next morning. Time was passing, and an irritated Huguette knocked impatiently on the door to remind Szeryng that they had a train to catch. When Guillou, peeking around the door, said she could not enter the room because Szeryng was in his underwear, she replied, “I saw worse horrors during the war,” pushed the door wide open, and strode in.³⁷ They would perform together on many other occasions and record an album of Handel and Corelli. Szeryng told Melkus that he considered her the best harpsichordist in France.³⁸

Huguette and Szeryng were invited to play in the seventy-fifth anniversary concert season at Wigmore Hall in London along with Arthur Rubinstein, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Julian Bream, and other illustrious performers. In June 1977, they performed a program of Bach sonatas; she played Bach’s Partita Number 2 for her solo. Lionel Salter in a review for The Gramophone, wrote: “Her phrasing is musical, her touch varied, and her registration, while subtly varied, is an object lesson to harpsichordists with fidgety feet or who are afraid to let the music speak for itself!”³⁹

Huguette was considered France’s pre-eminent harpsichordist. In 1978 Alfred Deller wrote to Huguette, asking if she would be interested in their performing together in a duo, to which she responded enthusiastically. Over the years, they had concertized and recorded together, and he had joined her in Saint-Maximin to give masterclasses. Deller proposed a ten-day tour in the 1979–1980 season.⁴⁰ Unfortunately this project never came to fruition; he passed away on July 16, 1979.

The Japanese flautist Miwako Shirao Rey made Huguette’s acquaintance while studying with Christian Lardé at the academy in Saint-Maximin. In the summer of 1978, Huguette called on her for assistance when the director of the group Tokyo Solisten came to Paris to discuss Huguette’s agreement to perform in concert with them in Japan the following year. Miwako acted as translator and helped to make the arrangements.⁴¹ The invitation had originated with Mariko Oguino Oikawa, soloist in the ensemble, a friend of Miwako’s and Huguette’s first Japanese student. She had come to her for private lessons between 1971 and 1974, while studying at the Paris Conservatory with Robert Veyron-Lacroix. Mariko accompanied Huguette to Japan in 1979 to assist her.⁴² The concert with Huguette and the Tokyo Solisten took place on April 23, and Huguette gave a solo recital the next day. On April 29 Huguette and the Tokyo Solisten recorded three concerti of Johann Christian Bach for Columbia Records; the CD was released by Denon. 

Huguette returned to Japan in 1981 to give a concert on April 10. A reviewer remarked: “Elegant and audacious, and full of liveliness at each moment, her music satisfied us with the charming sound of the harpsichord.”⁴³

In 1982 Huguette signed a contract with the Tokyo-based Denon label for whom she would record over thirty LPs and CDs.⁴⁴ She stayed for a month in 1983, spending time with the Oikawa couple and their child Reine, who later studied intermittently with Huguette and is now a harpsichordist in Japan.⁴⁵

Sometimes in her travels and concerts, the inevitable mishaps that plague every traveling artist occurred. Once on a makeshift stage when she stood up to take a bow, she found that one of her spiked heels had caught in the planks. Smiling, she slipped her foot out, took her bow, and walked off stage, with one foot on tiptoe. Another time, during a performance of a Bach concerto for four harpsichords, the page turner of the player next to her turned the page too soon, causing the player to lose her place and stop. With presence of mind and a practiced gift for improvisation, Huguette played her colleague’s part while maintaining her own until the woman could resume playing. When Huguette traveled to meet Eduard Melkus, his favorite gift from her was cheese, a gift that Zuzana Ružicková and her husband, composer Victor Kalabis, also appreciated. So Huguette never left home without a selection of fine French cheese. Once, however, her suitcase got lost by the airlines, and she had to wait a couple days in fear that her one evening gown would turn up, reeking of rancid cheese. Fortunately when the suitcase arrived, she found that the cheese had been successfully shrink-wrapped, so her gown was safe.⁴⁶

Huguette continued to give concerts until, for reasons of health, she stopped in January 2009, after seventy years of performing in public, something she had loved to do since childhood. The day of a concert, if she was out of town, she would visit a museum. Otherwise, she would devote her attention to the upcoming concert and rehearse in the morning.

I believe a lot in the relationship between music and other forms of beauty and of art. If it is possible, before a concert, I stop concentrating on the technical execution for a moment and look outside the music for other sources of beauty—an art exhibit, architecture, a landscape, contemplation that is good for the soul and for musical interpretation. It is like giving water to a flower for it to bloom easily.⁴⁷

When she stepped onstage, she could immediately feel if the audience was receptive to her or not, or just indifferent. “The artist has to make contact without forgetting the music.”⁴⁸ When she did make contact, she rejoiced in the “success of love” even if she was dissatisfied with her performance.⁴⁹ As she told harpsichordist Richard Siegel, “If you touch someone in the audience, that’s what counts.”⁵⁰ Love, on many different levels, was what she wanted to communicate when she played. It was as if she were on fire, as if she could hardly contain the music’s energy inside her. You knew she was not thinking of individual notes when she played; she had already studied the music thoroughly, mastering its complexities, its style. It was as if she were the conduit for electric, irrepressible currents of music, flowing from a distant inexhaustible source. Whether Huguette played a Scarlatti sonata rapidly and energetically or pieces by François Couperin—La Ménetou in a measured and tender way, and Les Lis naissans very delicately—her performance was always expressive.

Expression is essential no matter what the period of music—expression that touches the soul. Expression in early music approaches speech, the expression
of language.⁵¹

She could play expressively because she was entirely present in whatever she did, giving her total attention. This stemmed from the love and respect she had for life, its creatures, and creative expression . . . a mentality that would also make her an extraordinary teacher.

To be continued.

Notes

1. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, Musiciens pour demain, France Musique, July 1979. 

2. Agendas, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Site Richelieu, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (5).

3. Huguette Dreyfus, interview by Denis Herlin, December 8, 2008.

4. Huguette’s father, Fernand Dreyfus, was struck and killed by a car in front of their apartment building on October 10, 1951. (Interview with Françoise Dreyfus, July 25, 2016.)

5. Alan Rubin, email to author, March 14, 2021.

6. Jean-Claude Battault, interview with author, Cité de la Musique, Paris, March 9, 2022. 

7. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, France Musique, July 29, 1996. 

8. Journal de Genève, No. 232, October 4–5, 1958.

9. Ruggero Gerlin, BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (16).

10. Jill Severs, interviews with author, August 8, August 24, and September 6, 2022.

11. Michel Bernstein, Qobuz e-magazine, Les souvenirs de Michel Bernstein (VII), “Être toujours à la pointe,” https://www.qobuz.com/be-fr/info/magazine-actualites%2Fchers-disparus%2Fles-souvenirs-de-michel-bernstein32073.

12. Norbert Dufourcq, Concerts de Paris, radio program, March 31, 1960, Inathèque de France (INA), BnF, site Mitterand, Paris.

13. Colette Arnould, La Libération, Friday, May 12, 1961. 

14. Inathèque de France (INA), ID Notice CPF86642589, BnF, site Mitterand, Paris.

15. Le Dauphiné Libére, April 12, 1961.

16. Claude Mercier-Ythier, interview with author, August 5, 2016.

17. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (19). Nadia Boulanger was one of the founding members in 1921 of the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau and its director from 1948 until her death in 1979.

18. Concert program in author’s collection. The Princess of Polignac was born Winnaretta Singer. Her father, Isaac Merritt Singer, the sewing machine manufacturer, bequeathed her a fortune, and she became the predominant patron of the most important creative people in Paris, primarily musicians, before her death in 1943. The foundation still sponsors concerts, symposiums, and other cultural events.

19. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (19).

20. Paul Kuentz, interview by author, Paris, France, 2017. 

21. Arcade Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, October 2007. https://www.yumpu.com/fr/document/read/5783360/henri-jarrie-arcade-paca. 

22. The convent is now a hotel. The term “convent” applied originally to the structure that housed priests in orders—not monks who lived in monasteries—and nuns. It is only in recent history that the meaning changed, applying only to nuns.

23. The festival in Aix en Provence had been created in 1948, but there was no emphasis on early music.

24. Conserved in the departmental archives of the Var region, No. 64 J 1-171-64 J 25.

25. “Huguette Dreyfus, Complete Discography,” compiled by Sally Gordon-Mark, https://www.dolmetsch.com/huguettedreyfusdiscography.htm.

26. In his nineties at the time of publication of this article, Eduard is still conducting his orchestra in concert.

27. The Academy summer workshops still exist, but only organ classes are given. 

28. Eduard Melkus, conversations with author from 2016 to 2022. 

29. BnF, site Richelieu, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12). 

30. Françoise Dreyfus, op. cit.

31. Mario Raskin, interview with author, October 17, 2022.

32. Information from programs in the author’s collection.

33. Eduard Melkus, op. cit.

34. Ružicková was the only harpsichordist to have recorded Bach’s work in its entirety. A box-set of all the discs was released by Warner Classics in 2016.

35. Michel Bernstein, Qobuz, op. cit. 

36. Eduard Melkus, op. cit. 

37. Yannick Guillou, letter to author, March 2, 2017.

38. Eduard Melkus, op. cit.

39. Lionel Salter, The Gramophone, BnF, VM 145 FONDS DRE-5 (3).

40. Alfred Deller, letter to Huguette Dreyfus, BnF VM FONDS DRE-1 (3).

41. Miwako Shirai Rey, email to author, October 21, 2022.

42. Miwako Shirai Rey, phone interview by author, August 16, 2022. 

43. Shigeru Oikawa, interviews by author and written account, dated September
25, 2017.

44. “Huguette Dreyfus, Complete Discography,” op. cit.

45. Aozawa Tadao, Ongaku-no-Tomo. April 1981.

46. Anecdotes related by Huguette Dreyfus to the author.

47. Huguette Dreyfus, interview, Corriere dell’Umbria, February 18, 1999. Translated from Italian to English by the author.

48. Huguette Dreyfus, interview, France Musique, July 29, 1996.

49. Huguette Dreyfus, interview, 1979, op. cit. 

50. Richard Siegel, phone interview, summer 2021. 

51. From author’s notes of conversations with Huguette Dreyfus.

Sally Gordon-Mark

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician: her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played the harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, becoming a devoted friend.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She taught piano privately and also at the British School of Paris. In September 2020, she settled in Perugia, Italy, where she is studying medieval music and continues to offer her services as a translator in the world of the arts. Sally was the guest editor of the March 2023 issue of the e-magazine published by the British Harpsichord Society, Sounding Board, Number 19, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. For more information: sallygordonmark.com.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the March 2023 issue of The Diapason, pages 18–20; part 2 appeared in the April 2023 issue, pages 14–19; part 3 appeared in the July 2023 issue, pages 10–15; part 4 appeared in the August 2023 issue, pages 10–14.

Et les fruits passeront la promesse des fleurs.

—François de Malherbe¹

Huguette Dreyfus’s performing career started while she was still a student in 1956, skyrocketed in the 1960s, and lasted until the end of 2008. During that half-century, she gave concerts all over the world, made 117 recordings,² and, in France alone, appeared on about 200 radio broadcasts and thirty television programs.³ Huguette received prizes, medals, and awards throughout her life in recognition of her achievements. What’s more, her reputation as an extraordinary pedagogue travelled beyond France’s borders, attracting harpsichordists, pianists, and organists from all over the world to study with her. Huguette once said in a radio interview:

For me, pedagogy is a very important part of my professional life, and I would say that in general, it is also very important for the evolution of an artist, because it prevents one from stagnating in one’s convictions. . . .⁴

Huguette greeted the arrival of the twenty-first century with her usual unfailing enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, and energy. In the fall of 2000, she performed with Eduard Melkus at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and was featured several times on French radio. In 2000 and 2002, she gave masterclasses in Budapest and at the Villecroze Academy in France, and again in 2003 and 2004 at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” in Milan, Italy.

In a letter to a former student, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Huguette wrote that she was “continuing to teach, but playing less. . . . I often go out, and I lead an active life.” She mentioned that she would sit on national and international juries in 2004 and would give another concert in Vienna in March with Melkus and his ensemble, Capella Academica Wien.⁵ Until 2012, she continued to give interviews on French radio. On December 28, 2003, she participated in a documentary on French television, Johann Sebastian Bach: the Last Years, along with Philippe Herreweghe and other major artists.⁶

In the new century, CDs of her recordings continued to be released, notably reissues of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos; the historic recordings of C. P. E. Bach’s Concerto pour flûte et orchestre en ré majeur, with Jean-Pierre Rampal on flute and Pierre Boulez conducting the chamber orchestra; and with Henryk Szeryng, George Frideric Handel, 6 Violin Sonatas, Arcangelo Corelli, La Folia. The Japanese label Denon released her recordings of Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias in 2005 and the 16 Harpsichord Transcriptions in 2006. In 2008, the CD of Konzert für Cembalo und Streicher, Schauspielmusik zu Ritter Blaubart [Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings, Playful Music for the Knight Bluebeard] by Hugo Distler came out on the Musicaphon label. Huguette had recorded the concerto in 1964 but did not play on the Bluebeard recording, which was done in 2002.⁷ The last reissue in her lifetime would be in 2013, Henri Dutilleux: The Centenary Edition, a compilation of remastered discs by Erato.⁸

In February 2006 in another letter to Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Huguette wrote that she had been ill since the beginning of January with a severe case of infectious bronchitis.⁹ Illness was unusual for her, even though her schedule had always been demanding and full of voyages. Later in the year she was chosen by the Fondation Prince Louis de Polignac to present its prizes in a ceremony “under the high patronage of her very serene highness, the Princess Antoinette of Monaco.”¹⁰

In 2008 the two concerts that would bring her career to a close were personally meaningful. On May 28 Huguette performed Bach’s fifth Brandenburg Concerto with old friends Eduard Melkus conducting the Mulhouse Conservatory Chamber Orchestra and soloists Antje Lallart and Miwako Shiraï-Rey on violin and flute, respectively. This concert in her honor took place in the Saint Jean Temple in her native Alsatian city of Mulhouse, which had presented her with a municipal medal on May 25. In a local review, it was noted:

Known throughout the world, Huguette Dreyfus, the harpsichordist from Mulhouse, contributed considerably to the renaissance of early music. This Baroque festival pays tribute to her. . . . Huguette Dreyfus has only performed here twice before: the first time [as a prizewinner] of the Geneva competition, then a second time at the Temple St. Jean, in the context of a Bach festival organized 30 years ago. . . .¹¹

Huguette’s final concert would be with her musical partner of more than fifty years, violinist Eduard Melkus. He invited her to perform with him and his ensemble in Vienna on November 27, 2008, in honor of her eightieth birthday on November 30. That summer, she had given her last masterclass 
at Villecroze.

After having officially retired, Huguette accepted an invitation from Kristian Nyquist, a former student, to give a masterclass at the school where he taught, the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. Noticing that her neck seemed to bother her, he hesitated to ask her to play, but she surprised him by giving an impromptu but masterly performance for his students.¹²

In March 2009 Huguette participated in a major two-day conference on Wanda Landowska at the Cité de la Musique in Paris; her interview was broadcast on the radio. Introduced as “fervently admired by her students . . . luminous and profoundly human,” she was interviewed on March 5 by the event’s director, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger. She began by speaking about her teacher, Ruggero Gerlin, who had been a student and disciple of Landowska for twenty years before the Second World War, when Landowska had to flee to the United States and he had to return to Italy. A detailed description of his style of teaching in her class at the Chigiana Academy in Siena followed. This led to a discussion of the Pleyel and Neupert harpsichords available at the time, and then to the acquisition of her own instrument, which, because of its quills, informed her touch. Huguette said that at the time the player had to accept what was available and adapt. “The truth of it is that I always liked the instruments that I was playing at the time that I knew them.” Interestingly enough, Eigeldinger gave her free rein, and she did not speak directly about Wanda Landowska at all.¹³

In October of that year, Huguette gave up her car, cancelling the insurance. She showed signs of having pain in her neck and back, but true to her nature, she did not complain. Those dearest to her would soon depart: her cousin Nicole on February 11, 2010, and Myriam Soumignac on September 7, 2012. She had already lost two of the teachers that had inspired her the most—Ruggero Gerlin in 1983 and Norbert Dufourcq in 1990—and her close friend and collaborator Luciano Sgrizzi in 1994.

On March 21, 2010, Huguette spoke as the guest of honor at the annual event hosted by the association of harpsichordists, Clavecins en France. That year it was held at the former location of the Paris Conservatory at 14 rue de Madrid, where many past students and colleagues, including her friends Kenneth Gilbert and Myriam Soumignac, came to pay tribute to her. In 2012, France Musique produced a two-hour comprehensive interview with Huguette in two parts, and seemingly for the first time on air, Huguette spoke about her personal life, even going back to her childhood.¹⁴

In 2013 Huguette was honored in Brazil, where she had given masterclasses during the entire month of October 1975 under the auspices of the Museum of Art in São Paulo, which had organized a unique event, the “Course-Festival of Harpsichord Interpretation.” As a result of those classes, several of her young students (Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Ana Cecilia Tavares, and Ilton Wjuniski), who had had little opportunity to come into contact with a harpsichord before, received grants to come study with her in Paris, and they did. It is believed that her presence in Brazil and her influence inspired a surge in interest for the harpsichord in general. Harpsichordist Marcelo Fagerlande, who had witnessed the enthusiasm of the participants, created a Harpsichord Week (Semana do Cravo) when he became professor in the School of Music at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and he eventually organized a tribute to Huguette. On October 30, 2013, a video conference with Huguette was arranged, since she could not make the trip to Brazil, and she was greeted by many of her former students.¹⁵

Shortly thereafter, in November, Huguette fell and fractured her skull, which resulted in her being in a coma for months. But she miraculously survived, and on November 30, 2014, Huguette returned home to be greeted on the phone by worried friends calling to wish her a happy birthday. During the following year, she recuperated slowly, seeing family and friends who came to visit. On June 7, 2015, she gave an interview, captured on video, to her old friend Rémy Stricker, a musicologist and former radio producer.¹⁶ However, the following year after a second fall, she was readmitted to the Corentin-Celton hospital in Issy-Les-Moulineaux, just south of Paris. A steady flow of friends, relatives, and students kept her company. When she stopped speaking, her silence, something that had always been unimaginable, was deeply unsettling.

The last time I saw Huguette, on May 14, 2016, a piece by Mozart was playing on her bedside radio. Small pots of roses stood under the windows. She had always loved flowers, but could have no garden, just as she had always loved animals, but could have no pets. She had no children; she had never married, but she had created a family nonetheless of her friends and students. For she did nurture many of her students, and for some of us, she was a mother. Sitting by the bed, holding her hand, my mind was unable to accept the incomprehensible fact of her absence, for she was no longer conscious of her surroundings. I had never known her to be inanimate before, so against all reason, I kept expecting her to say something or pat my hand. I wondered if her expectations and hopes had been fulfilled, if her unfailingly cheerful façade had been supported by real happiness. Her vitality that had seemed inexhaustible and indestructible was now mysteriously gone.

Huguette passed away serenely in the early morning hours of Monday, May 16, 2016. According to her wishes, a simple ceremony was held at the Père-Lachaise cemetery, where her ashes were eventually scattered in its memorial garden.

§

Huguette’s orphaned students honored her with concerts and book dedications. On May 5, 2018, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo (who had traveled from Argentina just to participate), Frank Gousset, Elisabeth Joyé, Frank Mento, Kristian Nyquist, Joël Pontet, Brice Sailly, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Marie Van Rjhin, and Ilton Wjuniski performed in a memorial concert at the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory where she last taught. The auditorium was packed, despite little publicity, and latecomers had to stand in the uppermost balcony. Harpsichord makers Claude Mercier-Ythier and Marc Ducornet were in attendance: Claude mounted a display he had created out of color photocopies of all of Huguette’s LP covers, and Marc loaned his most popular concert harpsichord. Each player prefaced their performance with an anecdote about Huguette. After the concert, which ended with a moment of silence, we celebrated her memory with a reception as jolly as she would have wanted it to be. We lifted our glasses to her, wishing she were with us.

The following month, on June 18, the Conservatoire de musique, danse, et art dramatique de Mulhouse Huguette Dreyfus was inaugurated. Xavier Lallart, the director of the conservatory at the time, had nominated her as a candidate for the name, and she emerged the winner after a public municipal election. Given her love of teaching, no tribute to her could be more significant than this. According to Eduard Melkus, it was also Lallart who was behind the concert in May 2008 in Mulhouse. His wife Antje, conductor and violinist, had been old friends with Huguette, having met her through Eduard Melkus, with whom she had studied.¹⁷

In addition to her extensive discography, she left behind three publications: Mélanges François Couperin, published by A. et J. Picard et Cie of Paris in 1968; Rencontres de Villecroze (1995) François Couperin: nouveaux regards, actes des Rencontres de Villecroze, 4 au 7 Octobre 1995, sous la direction d’Huguette Dreyfus; and J. S. Bach: Goldberg-Variationen, Variations for Piano, BWV 988, Wiener Urtext Edition, Schott/Universal (UT50159), “Edited from the new Bach-Edition by Christoph Wolff. Fingering and comments on interpretation by Huguette Dreyfus.”

Beginning early in her career, many of Huguette’s recordings received France’s most prestigious prizes. She was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros¹⁸ in 1962, 1970, 1971, 1972; the Grand Prix de l’Académie du Disque français¹⁹ in 1964 and 1968; the Grand Prix des Discophiles in 1964; the Prix de l’Institut de Musicologie de l’Académie du Disque français in 1970; the Grand Prix du Président de la République from l’Académie Charles Cros in 1985; and the Prix de la Nouvelle académie du disque in 1995.²⁰

Huguette bequeathed her papers, photographs, recorded and published music, concert programs, and posters to the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris. Her archives are located at the Richelieu site, identified as FM FONDS DRE in the catalogue. To the Musée de la Musique in the Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie de Paris, she bequeathed her harpsichord, “Le Dreyfus,” and an 1821 Broadwood fortepiano. She left her Neupert spinet to an anonymous person, and her piano was sold at auction.

In an interview with musicologist Denis Herlin,²¹ Huguette told him that her brother had purchased her harpsichord from an antique dealer on Rue de Rivoli in Paris, and that she went to see it there, as did Norbert Dufourcq at her request. The harpsichord, said to be a Blanchet, had been in Raymond Russell’s collection, and was auctioned in June 1956 to the Pelham Galleries. She acquired the instrument in 1958 and hired the leading technician of the time, Marcel Asseman, to do necessary repairs to render it playable, but not to restore it.

When the Musée de la Musique acquired the harpsichord, its authenticity was questioned. Rumors had been circulating for years in Paris that it was not an authentic Blanchet, but no one wanted to tell Huguette. William Dowd, in partnership with Reinhard Von Nagel from 1971 to 1985, came to her apartment sometime in 1973 to examine the harpsichord for a piece he was writing on the Blanchet workshop. Without being able to disassemble it, he noticed that the keyboards and action had been replaced. He saw evidence of an earlier restoration, which could have been done in England, possibly by Arnold Dolmetsch, or in France before Raymond Russell acquired it. But without consulting Russell’s archives in Edinburgh, the instrument’s prior history cannot be ascertained.

The museum submitted Huguette’s harpsichord to scientific tests and a minute examination before undertaking its restoration. Analysis showed that the instrument had been reconstructed in the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century by an unknown person. Technicians often leave identifying marks in the instrument, and one was found from Marcel Asseman. The wood was determined to be from the eighteenth century, which could mean that an old harpsichord had been rebuilt. Neither the soundboard nor the decoration on the bentside are original. The rose, a harpsichord maker’s trademark, is not considered to be Blanchet’s. Therefore, it has been concluded that the instrument was not built by Blanchet or anyone in his atelier. However, because it has historical significance, having been played by Huguette and her illustrious students, it has been named after her. The harpsichord is now completely restored and available for concerts, recordings, and masterclasses, according to Huguette’s wishes.²²

During her lifetime, the French government bestowed its highest awards on her, acknowledging her service to her country. There are two French national orders: the highest is the Legion of Honor, the second one is the National Order of Merit. They are very similar in their award criteria, the main difference being the minimal period of service: ten years for the National Order of Merit, twenty years for the Legion of Honor. Both of them have three ranks, Knight, Officer, and Commander; and two titles, Grand Officer and Grand Cross. Huguette was awarded the Knight of the National Order of Merit medal on June 6, 1973, then one for Officer on April 3, 1987, and then one for Commander on May 14, 2004. On December 30, 1995, she was awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honor medal, and then promoted to Officer on December 31, 2008.²³ She was also honored by the Austrian government, which made her a Commandeur de l’ordre national du Mérite, and Officier des Arts et des Lettres et du Mérite de la République d’Autriche.

Aside from the recordings, instruments, and publications she left behind, Huguette’s most important legacy may have been the indelible imprint she left on the performers she taught, who in turn became teachers themselves. For example, it was she who inspired concert artist Elisabeth Joyé to take up the harpsichord:

I was 17, passionate about music, and I played the piano. My dad was the treasurer of a music festival in the south of France, and I was the official page-turner. That summer, Huguette Dreyfus had been invited to the Collégiale de Six-Fours to play all of the Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord on the Hemsch harpsichord that belonged to Claude Mercier-Ythier. I was turning the pages and was immediately fascinated by all that Huguette was doing on that magnificent instrument as to expressivity and dynamics. I was familiar with the Neupert harpsichord as being the instrument that played bass continuo in an orchestra. I adored Bach’s music that I was playing a lot on the piano. That night, I made the decision to start playing the harpsichord. Huguette advised me to study with André Raynaud in Aix-en-Provence because I did not envisage moving to Paris at the time—I was young! The following year, no doubt thanks to my obstinacy and my passion for Bach and the harpsichord, I was accepted into Huguette’s class at the Bobigny Conservatory, where I remained for three years before leaving for the Netherlands. I remember her lively and exacting teaching. I stayed in touch with Huguette until the end of her life, and we shared a great deal of memories. We also spoke about teaching and the young generation.²⁴

One of her colleagues, Françoise Lengellé, recalls her experience working with Huguette when they taught at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse in Lyon, France:

The relationship between two colleagues that Huguette and I were able to have—outside of the admiration that I felt for her as an artist—was a source of permanent evolution and creativity for me. Watching and listening to her teach were always superb lessons in themselves. I was always thankful for her great culture, humor, and the epic laughs at Lyon and elsewhere that we shared. I owe her so much.²⁵

And so do many of us, as well as the audiences to whom Huguette introduced the harpsichord and the lesser-known Baroque repertoire in the 1960s. Later, it would be twentieth-century contemporary music for harpsichord that she would help make known to the public. Although future audiences will not be able to experience her effervescence and artistry in person, the recordings she left behind for future technology to embellish and the seeds she planted in her students will ensure her enduring presence in the perennial transmission of harpsichord music from generation to generation.

Notes

1. “And the fruits will surpass the promise of the flowers.” François de Malherbe, “Prière pour le Roy Henry Le Grand allant en Limozin,” Œuvres poétiques de Malherbe, E. Flammarion (Librairie des Bibliophiles), 1897, Paris, pages 108–113.

2. Huguette Dreyfus’s complete discography, compiled by the author, dolmetsch.com/huguettedreyfusdiscography.htm.

3. INA, http://inatheque.ina.fr/docListe/TV-RADIO/.

4. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview by Myriam Soumignac, “Portraits en musique,” June 9, 1988, France Musique. INA, op. cit.

5. “Je sors beaucoup et mène une vie active,” Huguette Dreyfus, letter to Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, December 10, 2003.

6. Les chemins de la foi: Jean Sébastien Bach, les dernières années. France 2. INA, 
op. cit.

7. Robert Tifft, email to the author, June 13, 2023.

8. Huguette Dreyfus’s complete discography, compiled by author, op. cit.

9. Huguette Dreyfus, letter to Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, February 3, 2006.

10. Correspondance D, E, F. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (3).

11. Coupures de presse, BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE 5 (4).

12. Kristian Nyquist, interview with author, March 5, 2022, Karlsruhe, Germany.

13. Huguette Dreyfus, interviewed by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, March 5, 2009. “Wanda Landowska et la renaissance de la musique ancienne,” March 4–5, 2009, Cité de la Musique, Paris, France.

14. Marcel Quillévéré’s radio interviews of Huguette Dreyfus, “Les traversées du temps,” France Musique. March 7, 2012 (part 1) and March 8, 2012 (part 2).

15. Marcelo Fagerlande, phone interview by author, October 21, 2022. Also see Sounding Board, number 19, page 33. 16. “L’Entretien d’Huguette Dreyfus et Rémy Stricker sur Roland-Manuel,” June, 2015. youtube.com/watch?v=NQ_NjzI_cV0. The film was produced by Les Amis de Maurice Ravel, boleravel.fr, and directed by Gérard Guilloury, gerardguilloury.com.

17. Xavier and Antje Lallart, interviews by phone, email, and in person from July 15 through November 2022.

18. Charles Cros (1842–1888), an important poet, scientist, and inventor who experimented in the reproduction of sound.

19. The Académie du disque français was founded in 1951 by Jean Cocteau, Colette, Arthur Honegger, the poet Guy-Charles Cros (the son of Charles Cros), and Michel de Bry. In 1964 Georges Auric and Darius Milhaud were co-presidents of the academy.

20. Huguette Dreyfus’s complete discography, compiled by author, op. cit.; Biographie Huguette Dreyfus, https://www.whoswho.fr/decede/biographie-huguette-dreyfus_23542.

21. Denis Herlin, Sounding Board, number 19, page 35, March 2023.

22. Jean-Claude Battault, interview with author, March 9, 2022, Cité de la Musique, Paris, France. For more information on the instrument, see “Guillaume Finaz and ‘Le Dreyfus,’ ” Sounding Board, number 18, page 33, May 2022.

23. Alice Bouteille, director of communication, Cabinet du grand chancelier, Paris, France. Email to author, February 1, 2023. Translated from French by the author.

24. Elisabeth Joyé, email to author, April 1, 2023. Translated from French by the author.

25. Françoise Lengellé, email to author, April 11, 2023. Translated from French by the author.
 

Acknowledgments

After Huguette passed away in 2016, the first person I interviewed was our mutual friend, Claude Mercier-Ythier. He was eager to help me with my project to document Huguette’s life, giving me information and photographs. We made plans to collaborate on her discography, based on the accounts he painstakingly kept of her recordings. Since then, I was fortunate to meet six other contemporaries of Huguette: Eduard Melkus, Zuzana Ružicková, Anne-Marie Becksteiner Paillard, Paul Kuentz, Jill Severs, and Marie-Claire Jamet, who graciously welcomed me and shared their memories. Some gave me videos, recordings, and photographs of Huguette. Sadly, Claude, Zuzana, and Anne-Marie have since passed away.

However, the first person I must thank is Huguette herself. For many of her students, she was a midwife, a catalyst. She revealed me to myself, and I switched tracks, moving in a different direction towards a life that better suited my true nature. She showed me that I could perform the music I loved if I worked in a more efficient way and focused my attention only on the piece as I played. “The only thing that’s important is the music,” she once told me. In 2000 Huguette wrote the recommendation letter required for me to obtain a research pass at the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, and I discovered another life-changing passion.

With gratitude for their assistance and/or participation in articles I have written on Huguette for both The Diapason and Sounding Board, I thank Judith Andreyev, Andrew Appel, Jean-Claude Battault, Olivier Baumont, Christine Bayle, the late Anne-Marie Beckensteiner-Paillard, Nanon Bertrand, Dr. Brian Blood (Dolmetsch Foundation), Alice Bouteille (Cabinet du grand chancelier), the Conservatoire Emmanuel Chabrier de Clermont-Ferrand, Jocelyne Cuiller, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Laurence Decobert (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Renaud Digonnet, Matthew Dirst, Françoise Dreyfus, Marc Ducornet, Mahan Esfahani, Marcelo Fagerlande, Guillaume Finaz, Catherine Findlayson, Elisabeth Giuliani, Katarina Glachant, Stuart Gordon (who restored many otherwise unusable images), François-Pierre Goy, Yannick Guillou, Ellen Haskel-Maserati, Denis Herlin, Marie-Claire Jamet, Elisabeth Joyé, Niamh Kenny (l’Académie musicale de Villecroze), Mark Kroll, Paul Kuentz, Chiaopin Kuo, Laetitia Faetibolt (City of Mulhouse, France), Antje and Xavier Lallart, Susan Landale, Véronique LeGuen, Yohann Le Tallec (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Françoise Lengellé, Edna Lewis, Jean-Rémy Macchia, Eduard Melkus, Frank Mento, the late Claude Mercier-Ythier, Laure Morabito, Marie-Claire Moreau-Mangin, Novine Movarekhi, Pamela Nash, Jenny Nex (The University of Edinburgh), David Noël-Hudson, Kristian Nyquist, Shigeru Oikawa, Larry Palmer, Olivier Papillon, Miriam Pizzi (Accademia Musicale Chigiana), Mario Raskin, André Raynaud, Julie Reid (archivist, Centre du patrimoine), Jean-Paul Rey, Marie Van Rhijn, Lionel Rogg, Salvo Romeo, Christophe Rousset, Alan Rubin, the late Zuzana Ružicková, Pascal Scheuir, Lucile Schirr (Archives, Strasbourg, France), Didier Schnorhk (formerly with the Concours de Genève), Jill Severs, Miwako Shiraï-Rey, Richard Siegel, Laurent Soumignac, Ana Cecilia Tavares, Pascal Teixeira da Silva, Mariko Terashi, Robert Tifft, Catherine Vallet-Collot (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Reinhard von Nagel, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Kamila Valkova Valenta, Jory Vinikour, Daniel Wagschal, Olivia Wahnon de Oliveira (librarian of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels), Peter Watchorn, Jed Wentz, John Whitelaw, Laura Widolf (Conservatoire Huguette Dreyfus), Ilton Wjuniski, and Aline Zylberajch-Gester.

I am especially indebted to Françoise Dreyfus and François-Pierre Goy for their involvement, support, and assistance, without which these articles could never have been written. Special thanks go to Pamela Nash, Robert Tifft, and Jed Wentz for reading my drafts and making important observations. I am very fortunate to have benefited from their good natures, knowledge, and expertise. For their constant encouragement for me to write over the years, my heartfelt thanks go to Selina Hastings, Stuart Gordon, and Richard Hieronymus.

Sally Gordon-Mark

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician—her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, remaining a devoted friend until Huguette passed away.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She also taught piano privately and at the British School of Paris on a regular basis. In September 2020, she settled in Perugia, Italy. In March 2023, Sally was the guest editor of the British Harpsichord Society’s e-magazine Sounding Board, No. 19, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. You can download the magazine here:  https://www.harpsichord.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/SB19.pdf.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the March 2023 issue of The Diapason, pages 18–20; part 2 appeared in the April 2023 issue, pages 14–19; part 3 appeared in the July 2023 issue, pages 10–15.

She was life itself in her way of being and in her playing.²

Most of our colleagues—and we agree—consider Huguette Dreyfus the best harpsichordist of our time since Wanda Landowska. Why? . . . She is above all an artist, a musician who plays for pleasure. It is the way she has of expressing herself—with precision, ease, elegance, variety, and spontaneity. . . . She has a very great attribute: inasmuch as she takes what she does very seriously, she never seems to take herself too seriously.³

This press review was written in 1967, only five years after Huguette had given her first solo recital in Paris. Later that year, another critic referred to her as “the great lady of French harpsichordists, as she is called.”⁴ In that relatively short period, her concerts and recordings had catapulted her to the top of her profession in France.

Huguette’s life could have turned out quite differently. She and her family, being Jewish, lived in France’s “free zone” during the occupation by the Nazis until 1942. When it became necessary to leave, they crossed the Swiss border in December, most likely having traversed the mountains on foot as so many others did. The trip was made in glacial temperatures, for that winter would turn out to be one of France’s coldest in the twentieth century.⁵ She had just turned fourteen when she and her family sought shelter in Switzerland with relatives.⁶ After the war, they settled in Paris.

In 1953 Huguette was granted a scholarship at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena to study with Ruggero Gerlin, who would be her only harpsichord maître, for a total of six summers. In September of that year, Huguette played in the annual end-of-term concert in the Sala Bianca of the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini, which housed the Accademia. A critic was in the audience and spoke briefly of her performance in an Italian newspaper, using words like “grand perfection,” “great agility,” and “always brilliant.”⁷ There was another positive review the following year, when she performed again in the palace. However, she tumbled from her cozy nest in Siena when she participated in the Geneva international competition in October 1958.⁸ The only contestant remaining by the second round, she gave a public concert on October 1,⁹ receiving her first tepid review:

The young French harpsichordist has a very polished technique and animates her playing with an agreeable rhythmic cadence. Yes, all very proper—controlled and musical. Yet given the very impersonal character of the harpsichord, it should be forced to shake things up in a certain manner to be convincing. Yet Miss Dreyfus treats her instrument with very great respect.¹⁰

The reporter criticized her frequent registration changes as being distracting for the audience; Huguette had made five in each movement of the Bach partita, for example. For the third round, Huguette gave a concert in Geneva’s Victoria Hall on October 3, for which she received another lukewarm review, describing her playing as “prosaic.” However, Huguette took the criticism to heart and less than four years later, she received reviews like the following regarding her first solo recital in Paris:

Truly Miss Dreyfus is attached to her instrument, which she plays with exquisite art according to her nature, which is uncommon. What’s more, she captures, with her acute intelligence, the articulation of the phrases. . . .¹¹

This young harpsichordist has a way of playing that is very captivating! A balanced playing, precise, vigorous, as musical as you would wish for! . . . . Huguette Dreyfus knows the resources of her instrument. She exploits it wisely with rare talent, serving musical expression and formal clarity. Thus, the name of Huguette Dreyfus merits being remembered.¹²

In 1964 when the distinguished English musicologist Lionel Salter reviewed one of her Rameau LPs recorded in April 1960 and released in 1963, he praised her choice of registrations:

Huguette Dreyfus gives a whole string of admirable performances, never putting a finger wrong, with an unhurried sense of style and with every ornament convincing and clean as a whistle: her playing has vitality and strong rhythmic control, without ever becoming inflexible, and above all she has excellent taste. Her phrasing is musical, her touch varied, and her registration, while subtly varied, is an object lesson to harpsichordists with fidgety feet or who are afraid to let the music speak for itself. She uses 16-foot tone extremely sparingly, and then in entirely appropriate places.¹³

Never again would “prosaic” be used to describe her! Reviewing a concert she gave in Rome, an American newspaper there reported:

The vitality of Mlle. Dreyfus’s playing was, fortunately, equal to all tests, and she kept her audience in the palm of her hand to the very end. . . . Mlle. Dreyfus’s timing is as keen as that of a trapeze artist, and the arch of her phrase can be as breathtaking as his line of flight. Consequently she has no need of gaudy, tricky registrations. . . . Playing of this caliber is very rare.¹⁴

By the mid-1970s Huguette was on an equal par with the best musicians in Europe and was spoken of as “undoubtedly the greatest French harpsichordist”¹⁵ of her generation. It is evident from a review in 1976 that her personality was clearly integrated into her artistic persona:

. . . Huguette Dreyfus, always great. This musician is a model of sincerity and enthusiasm. She would not know how to be opaque and vague . . . .¹⁶

Parisian harpsichord-maker Reinhard von Nagel remembers:

Huguette on stage: certain harpsichordists have to win the heart of their public during a recital. Not Huguette! The few dancing and buoyant steps she took from coming offstage to the harpsichord on stage gained the audience’s attachment even before she touched the first note. And this even in the dark. In the summer of 1974, a concert was scheduled in Faro. The Portuguese dictatorship had ended several weeks earlier. Well, the night of the concert, an electrical black-out deprived the city of light. Never mind. Huguette played the sonatas by Seixas by heart, in the dark.¹⁷

A critic also spoke of the warmth she communicated to her audience:

Marvelous Huguette. When she sits at the keyboard, you feel her presence and availability immediately. . . . Huguette Dreyfus is warm and at ease from the beginning, which quickly puts the audience on her side. In action, she becomes totally a part of the instrument and a certain “aura” surrounds her, you feel her being a musician from her head—a pretty profile—to the tips of her fingers. Her style? Voluptuous, like her silhouette.¹⁸

For a lady of large renown, Huguette was small of stature, attractive and (bon vivant that she was) voluptuous in youth, plump in later years. She was immaculately groomed and stylishly dressed, often wearing clothes tailored for her. Although highly intelligent and cultured, there was nothing arrogant in her manner: she was confident, yet modest. Meeting her, the first thing that drew you to her was her luminous smile and the cheerful warmth in her eyes. Huguette inspired trust. She was entirely present when you spoke to her—focused, direct, engaged. Her keen wit was accompanied by an infectious laugh, which sometimes burst through her words before she could finish a sentence. She was even subject to uncontrollable giggles on stage, as described here by a British diplomat:

Eduard Melkus gave a most successful Bach evening with his cheery chum Huguette Dreyfus. The papers said how nice to go to an old music concert where the players were obviously enjoying making the music—we had a violin/harpsichord sonata, an unaccompanied violin partita, and two harpsichord concerti—with one instrument to each part instead of a whole orchestra—most enjoyable. The Dreyfus has very nimble fingers and appears to be an infectiously happy person: she soon had us all loving her. . . . Melkus broke a music stand when trying to make it higher: the Dreyfus got a fit of the giggles and the whole audience did.¹⁹

Huguette’s frequent performance partner, harpist Marie-Claire Jamet, recalls her having to leave the stage momentarily during a concert Huguette was giving with Marie-Claire’s husband, flautist Christian Lardé, and baritone Jacques Herbillon. She was on the brink of an uncontrollable fit of laughter, probably due to something Jacques, an impenitent prankster, said or did. Another time, when she and Marie-Claire were traveling by car, they laughed the entire way until they reached their concert venue.²⁰

Matthew Dirst, an American concert artist, teacher, and former student, remembers:

Huguette’s generosity and wicked sense of humor often worked in tandem: I enjoyed many a ride back to Paris in her car after a long day in Rueil-Malmaison, during which she would regale me with stories. Much laughter would ensue, and more than once we had to slow down so she could compose herself before continuing down the road. I also learned more than my fair share of off-color French slang during these commutes, thanks to her lively tutelage.²¹

Huguette loved to travel. It suited someone with her unquenchable curiosity and intense interests. After she acquired a car, she would take a month off to drive through France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy on her way to Siena for Gerlin’s classes. With her foot on the gas (and she did like to drive fast),²² Huguette would tour the countryside, visit places of interest, see friends along the way. She made detailed notes in her tiny diary of everything from appointments, travel expenses, and phone numbers to recipes and fragments of melodies.²³

A self-proclaimed “chatterbox,” Huguette spoke quickly, her words tumbling out with enthusiasm. Her focus was clearly on her companions and on the outside world. She followed what other musicians were doing, which is why in May 1955 she travelled to the Netherlands just to attend a concert by Janny van Wering. Huguette’s energy seemed to know no bounds. From the beginning of her adult life, she rehearsed, performed, and taught during the day, then saw friends or attended concerts in the evening. If she was ever tired or sad, she did not let it show. As light as her demeanor was, however, it cloaked character traits of a tougher nature. As harpsichordist Jill Severs remembers:

When I first heard Huguette play in class, I was struck by her confidence and competence, and during the following magical years that we spent at the Accademia Chigiana in Ruggero Gerlin’s harpsichord class, it was clear that she possessed a steely ambition. Huguette had a keen wit and was always a kind and helpful friend.²⁴

Friendship occupied a very important place in Huguette’s life.²⁵ No matter how busy, she always maintained correspondence with friends and former students all over the world, often writing letters, postcards, and Christmas cards by hand. She kept up her friendships with classmates from the 1950s, i.e., Kenneth Gilbert, musicologists and radio producers René Stricker and Myriam Soumignac. Other friends included performers with whom she had worked from the early 1960s onwards: Eduard Melkus, Jacques Herbillon, Christian Lardé, Marie-Claire Jamet, Alfred Deller, Luciano Sgrizzi, and Luigi Fernando Tagliavini. Close friends she could see less frequently were Zuzana R˚užiˇcková and her husband, Victor Kalabis. When the Soviets marched into Prague, she offered them a sanctuary, imploring them to come live with her, saying everything she had was theirs, but Zuzana and Victor did not want to abandon their native land. Zuzana never forgot this kindness:²⁶

How could I not remember Huguette, charming, cheerful, and friendly Huguette Dreyfuss [sic], another great artist and friend. How many evenings we spent chatting over a glass of red wine in a cheese place in Paris at the corner of “rue de Londre,” how many competitions as the jury members we have suffered through with the help of mutual support, her wonderful sense of humor, and her generous musicianship. And then came August of 1968: “Come, come together with Viktor, everything will be provided—the apartment, piano, harpsichord.” Perhaps there is nothing to add, this speaks for itself about our Huguette, whom even my students (whom I love to send to her) adore as well as perhaps anybody who has gotten to know her.²⁷

Mstislav Rostropovich, who had moved to Paris in 1978, was another close friend of Huguette’s.²⁸ Sylvia Spycket, a harpsichordist and classmate in Paris and Siena, introduced her to her brother Jérôme and to her sister Agnès, whom Huguette would see frequently.²⁹ Jérôme, a singer in Nadia Boulanger’s ensemble for a time, was a musicologist and the biographer of Clara Haskil, Nadia Boulanger, and Kathleen Ferrier. Agnès was a distinguished author and archaeologist, specializing in the Orient. Sadly, Sylvie, who had also studied with Dufourcq and Gerlin, passed away in her 40s in 1960.

A singular and touching friendship was one that Huguette experienced with a French-Canadian Catholic priest, Abbé Pierre Raymond, whom she had met at a concert in his parish, Saint Boniface, in Manitoba, in February 1963. She was on tour for the first time, playing with the Paul Kuentz orchestra. Abbé Pierre was a cultured, attractive, and articulate man. During the 1960s he was known for his gifts in literature, music, and drama, in the exercise of his role as a teacher and also as an inspector of the schools in his region. He was a fervent supporter of classes being given in French and vigorously campaigned for the survival of the French language in Manitoba. The priest initiated a correspondence with her that would last until 1970.

In the summer of 1964, on a trip to Lourdes, he went to Paris where he had lunch with Huguette and her family in their apartment on the Quai d’Orsay by Pont Alma. Although they were repeatedly invited to visit him in Manitoba to explore the province and stay with his sister Noëlla, who was a nun, teacher, and organist, they never did. In a letter dated August 23, 1965, Abbé Pierre compared the life of an artist with the life of a priest:

I am not unaware that your life as an artist demands the utmost from you. When you have been breathed on by genius and want to make the most of yourself for the happiness of others, it means total dedication, the giving of yourself without half measures and without repentance. Truly a priesthood, neither more nor less. . . . it is music that brings man closest to the ideal, which is cohesion of the hearts of all living beings.

In October that year, he would write to her, the “dear little sister of his soul:”

Take care of yourself, be prudent. But continue to transmit your smile and that of your art. The blessing of the artist has something of that of the great priest! She has a mission to warm the earth by the most profound Love there be!³⁰

In the school year of 1966–1967, Abbé Pierre obtained his master’s degree in theology from the University of Strasbourg. In his letters he expressed his hopes to be transferred to Vienna, but his request would be denied. There are no letters after 1970 in Huguette’s archives, and it seemed at the end that she was trying to discourage their friendship; as he became more and more solicitous about her work pace, she was slower to respond. He would remain thereafter in Manitoba.

In Paris, Huguette and harpsichord maker Claude Mercier-Ythier (1931–2020) sustained a professional relationship for forty-five years that benefited them both. They enjoyed a constant and amical friendship for a total of fifty-four years. Huguette first called on his services in 1962, the year that Claude, a native of Grasse in Provence, opened his store and workshop, A la corde pincée, 20 rue Vernueil, on the west bank of Paris, the first of its kind since the French Revolution. Building, restoring, and renting harpsichords, he also represented the Neupert company when Pleyel stopped making harpsichords. He maintained Huguette’s harpsichord, and since she did not travel with hers, he supplied her with instruments for recordings, concerts, and masterclasses, including an original harpsichord by Henri Hemsch (1754), her favorite, that he had restored.

Being able to play and record on a historic instrument at a time when copies of historic harpsichords were not yet being produced in France was a definite advantage that Huguette had over her rivals. It also helped place her at the forefront of the revival of early music, as did her tendency not to rely on printed editions but to consult original manuscripts at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. After Huguette’s death, Claude wrote a tribute to her:

I was proud to have known Huguette. We worked together for 45 years and toured France. How many people discovered the harpsichord thanks to these tours? . . . In certain places, the French were discovering this instrument for the first time. How many beautiful instruments did we discover in fabulous places—castles and convents? And how many unknown artists, composers of past eras, did she bring back to life? She was a woman with an iron will: I saw her give a concert at Saint Paul de Vence with a high fever. She didn’t give in. She had signed a contract, she owed a concert.³¹

The person to whom she was most attached was her brother Pierre, eight years her senior and a surgeon. When he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of forty-six in 1967, it was a hard blow that took years for her to get over. Later that same year, her mother, aged only sixty-five, passed away. She and her cousin, Nicole Dreyfus, began to see more of each other, eventually becoming very close. When Huguette was eight years old and Nicole twelve, they played piano duets every Sunday. As Huguette described it:

My mother and I went to her house because Nicole had lost her father when she was very young. She was taking piano lessons too. My other great pleasure was playing duets, to improvise completely. . . . Nicole preferred the bass part; me, I was up in the high notes. For us, it was a magnificent pleasure.³²

When Nicole and her mother moved to Nice in 1937, their paths separated. Nicole would become a famous lawyer in France. Once reunited, she and Huguette were often together and took their vacations in exotic places.³³ Nicole accompanied her to the Villecroze summer sessions and was a welcome guest at dinners and parties hosted by Huguette’s friends and students.

Huguette does not appear to have socialized with her first early music teacher, Norbert Dufourcq (1904–1990), but she did stay in touch with him and often attended his organ concerts and seminars. As for Ruggero Gerlin (1899–1983), their relationship remained friendly but formal over the years. He was very reserved, but still, in 1960, the first year since 1953 that she was absent from his class in Siena, he wrote to say that he missed her a lot. They did see each other often in Paris once he resided there.³⁴

The teacher with whom Huguette did develop a close friendship with was Alexis Roland-Manuel, born in 1891. He was very sociable, often inviting his students to his home. When he died on November 1, 1966, his wife asked Huguette to play at his funeral. When her friends passed away, she felt the loss deeply, as was the case with Luciano Sgrizzi (1910–1994), a “walking encyclopedia” according to Claude Mercier-Ythier. It had been an important friendship to her:³⁵

One of the things I appreciated the most in Luciano Sgrizzi was his immense culture. He had an extraordinary knowledge of literature, and you could speak with him on any subject. He always had something to bring to the conversation. I think that when you are a musician, you have to avoid only caring and speaking about your instrument.³⁶

As for Huguette’s preferences in music,

I’ve loved Italian opera since I was young. I’ve always had a special liking for singing—the voices of others, of course. I would have liked to have been able to sing, but that was a gift I wasn’t given.

Huguette especially enjoyed music by Rossini, who she said had the same “visceral joy of living” as Scarlatti did (and as she herself did). She also enjoyed listening to the music of Corelli, Vivaldi, Schubert, and modern music too—“You can’t separate yourself from your own era.”³⁷ She frequently asked her student Maria de Lourdes Cutolo to play Brazilian music for her after class.³⁸ Her favorite composers to play, according to interviews and concert programs, were Jean-Philippe Rameau, François Couperin, and above all, Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti.

In July 1985 she was featured in a five-part radio program presented by Rémy Stricker on Scarlatti, whom she described as “life itself.” Huguette felt that his sonatas fell into three periods. In the first, he is “extremely virtuoso, very brilliant. The sonatas are very hard to play and full of pitfalls.” The middle period is a transitional period, where he is “more self-assured in his ideas and there are more slow movements,” and in the last, “we observe that Scarlatti has completely mastered his instrument.” She goes on to say:

While hand crossings are rare, there are still many leaps, which are hard to execute. Scarlatti uses the full range of the keyboard. He wants to bring out the instrument’s richness. The last sonatas, more brilliant, show a quality of ideas that the first didn’t have: the virtuosity of the performer tends to disappear before the virtuosity of the composer.³⁹

In another radio interview, Huguette said:

Domenico Scarlatti was a phenomenon in the history of music. As far as I am concerned, he is not comparable to anyone. . . there are explosions in his music—very often of joy. . . . The fact of being dramatic is also important when you have a lot of vitality. You cannot always live joyfully. . . there are melancholy moments that he illustrates magnificently, and above all, very gay and rapid passages become suddenly gloomy, and then he recovers the joy, which is, after all, very dionysiac. . . . Sometimes he plays with equilibrium. He pretends to come back to a form already used, and then goes off another way.⁴⁰

Huguette’s repertoire included not only music from the Baroque and Classical periods, but also twentieth-century pieces by Bartok, de Falla, Stravinsky, Distler, Poulenc, and Dutilleux. Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013) composed a piece in her honor, Les Citations, for oboe, harpsichord, double bass, and percussion—a second part to an existing work (Diptych). In 1991, while teaching at Villecroze Academy in the summer, which harpsichordist Kristian Nyquist attended, Huguette received newly composed pages of the music, a few at a time, from Dutilleux. Kristian observed that she was under pressure to learn it quickly for the premiere, which would take place at the Festival of Besançon on September 9 in the Church of Saint Laurent. Filmed for television and also broadcast on radio, the premiere would be performed by Huguette, Maurice Bourgue, Bernard Balet, and Bernard Cazauran; a recording would follow later.⁴¹ Kristian turned pages for her, enjoying being in the midst of the concert.⁴²

As the curtain came down on the twentieth century, the pace of Huguette’s professional life decelerated somewhat. But her enthusiasm and high spirits did not lessen. She continued to give concerts in France and Europe. In 1994 Huguette resigned from her positions at the principal music conservatories in Lyon and Rueil-Malmaison, but continued to teach at home and in the summer sessions of Villecroze. In 1997 three important CDs that she had recorded came out: Mystery Sonatas, Rosencrantz Sonaten, Sonates du Rosaire (on which Eduard Melkus played violin),⁴³ Le Clavier bien tempéré I,⁴⁴ and Das wohltemperierte Klavier II.⁴⁵

Former students were welcome to come for tea or coffee, cake, and animated conversations on Sunday afternoons; those visiting from other countries found themselves invited to lunch. Huguette continued to travel and attend museum exhibits and concerts. From time to time, she gave concerts and masterclasses, granted interviews, and participated in symposiums. She visited friends in Italy and continued to perform in annual concerts with the chamber orchestra of her old friend Eduard Melkus⁴⁶ in Vienna’s Albertina Museum. No one who knew her could imagine her vibrant current of energy ever diminishing or even vanishing.

To be continued.

Notes

1. “The Queen of Hearts,” title of a harpsichord piece by François Couperin, Pièces de clavecin IV, Ordre 21ème. 

2. André Raynaud, The Sounding Board, Number 19, May 2023, page 7. The British Harpsichord Society.

3. “Cinq minutes avec Huguette Dreyfus,” Musica, Journal Musical Français, Number 154, February 1967, Coupures de presse, BnF VM FONDS DRE 5 (3).

4. Il Informateur Corse, March 14, 1967, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

5. “Trois grands hivers: 1940, 1941, 1942,” Le corps, la famille et l’État, Hommage à André Burguière. Myriam Cottias, Laura Downs, et Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (dir.) Presse universitaires de Rennes, 2010.

6. “The Life of French Harpsichordist Huguette Dreyfus, Part 1,” The Diapason, March 2023, page 18.

7. Newspaper and date unknown. Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit. 

8. “The Life of French Harpsichordist Huguette Dreyfus, Part 2,” The Diapason, April 2023, pages 14–15. 

9. Programs in author’s collection: Concours finals publics, Salle de Conservatoire, 1 October 1958 and Concours finals publics, Victoria Hall, vendredi 3 octobre 1958.

10. La Suisse, October 2, 1958, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

11. Maurice Imbert, Officiel des Spectacles, January 31, 1962, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

12. Claude Chamfray, Journal Musical Français, February 5, 1962, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

13. Lionel Salter, The Gramophone, London, June 1964, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

14. Daily American, Rome. Undated, but according to her concert programs and agendas, the review was most likely written in 1965. Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit. 

15. Jean-Louis Gazignaire, Le Figaro, Paris, July 10, 1976, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

16. George Gallician, Le Meridional—La France, July 15, 1968, Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

17. Reinhard von Nagel, Sounding Board, Number 19, page 7, op. cit.

18. René Geng, Mulhouse, undated but probably written in 1978, since she only performed there in 1958, 1978, and 2009. Coupures de presse, BnF, op. cit.

19. Extract of a letter dated November 22, 1978, from Theo Peters, former Consul General of the British Government at Anvers in Belgium, to Gordon C. Murray, who then sent it to Huguette Dreyfus on March 16, 1979. BnF, Correspondance non classée, 1967–1979, VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (17).

20. Marie-Claire Jamet, interview with author, November 6, 2022, Flayosc, France.

21. Matthew Dirst, December 22, 2022, Sounding Board, Number 19, March 2023, page 23, op. cit. 

22. Eduard Melkus, interview with author, Baden, Austria, February 2022. 

23. Agendes, BnF, VM FONDS DRE-3 (5).

24. Jill Severs, video interview with author, January 18, 2023.

25. Huguette Dreyfus, interview with Valentina Ferri, Symphonia—I concerti per clavicembalo, April 1998.

26. Zuzana Ružicková, interview with author, February 2017, Prague, Czech Republic.

27. Královna cembala, page 106, Zuzana R˚užiˇcková with Marie Kulijevyová, Zentiva, Czech Republic. This extract was translated from Czech into English by Kamila Valkova Valenta.

28. Laurent Soumignac, telephone interview with author, October 6, 2022.

29. Agendes, BnF, op. cit. 

30. Letters from Abbé Pierre Raymond to Huguette Dreyfus from 1964 to 1970, BnF, Correspondance non classée, 1944–1969, VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (16). 

31. Livre d’or, Clavecin en France, https://www.clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. 

32. Huguette Dreyfus, interview by Marcel Quillévére, “Les Traversées du Temps,” part 1, France Musique, March 7, 2012.

33. Having mentioned to students that she liked elephants after seeing them on a trip, Huguette ended up with a huge assortment of plush and ceramic elephants in all sizes that covered her pianoforte entirely.

34. Ruggero Gerlin, letter to Huguette Dreyfus, August 4, 1960, BnF, Correspondance non classée, op. cit.

35. Huguette Dreyfus, interview by Valentina Ferri, op. cit.

36. Huguette Dreyfus, interview by Myriam Soumignac, “Huguette Dreyfus: Portraits en musique,” France Musique, June 9, 1988, INA.

37. Huguette Dreyfus, interview by Myriam Soumignac, op. cit. 

38. Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, interview with author, May 13, 2018. 

39. “Domenico Scarlatti, 2/5: La vie en Espagne 1720–1757,” presented by Rémy Stricker, Radio France, July 9, 1985, INA.

40. Huguette Dreyfus, interview by Myriam Soumignac, op. cit.

41. Huguette’s complete discography is available at www.sallygordonmark.com and www.dolmetsch.com.

42. Kristian Nyquist, interview with author, March 5, 2022, Karlsruhe, Germany

43. Codex (Archiv Produktion), 453 173-2

44. Denon CO-75638/39, 1997

45. Denon CO-18037/38, 1997

46. The Capella Academica Wien, which Eduard Melkus in his 90s still conducts.

47. “My dear Miwako, Here I am back from an excellent stay in Hong-Kong with memories of a marvelous trip to Japan, in part thanks to you. I warmly thank you for your great kindness, both in the preparation of my voyage and during my stay. I especially appreciated your going out of your way to remain in Kyoto the last night. You facilitated the task of departure very much. Here, I am plunging immediately into a sea of work, running late and with problems of every sort, but that’s par for the course. My little Miwako, I wish with all my heart that your future will happen according to your desires, but I advise you to be alert and very prudent. That doesn’t prevent optimism at all. Keep your head high and be full of courage. With an affectionate kiss, Huguette Dreyfus.” (For more about the trip to Japan, see part 2 of this series, The Diapason, April 2023).

Sally Gordon-Mark

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician—her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, remaining a devoted friend until Huguette passed away.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She also taught piano privately and at the British School of Paris on a regular basis. In September 2020 she settled in Perugia, Italy. In March 2023 Sally was the guest editor of the British Harpsichord Society’s e-magazine Sounding Board, No. 19, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. For more information: www.sallygordonmark.com.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the March 2023 issue of The Diapason, pages 18–20; part 2 appeared in the April 2023 issue, pages 14–19.

“I was very attached to her, as one is to teachers who allow you to make huge strides in little time.” —Judith Andreyev²

By the 1980s, it had become customary for harpsichordists and organists from all over the world to come to France or the Netherlands to study and perfect their technique with Huguette Dreyfus, Kenneth Gilbert, and Gustav Leonhardt. Huguette’s concert tours and recordings had brought her international renown. She had a great gift for teaching, and with foreign students she could speak English, German, and Italian fluently. “Huguette has an absolutely fabulous sense of teaching, and she can communicate what she knows with enthusiasm.”³ Many of her students who had succeeded professionally continued to play for her before concerts, recordings, and tours. But Huguette would say in an interview late in life that her students did not need her as much as she needed them.⁴ Her students who became concert artists include harpsichordists Olivier Baumont, Emer Buckley, Jocelyne Cuiller, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Gaby Delfiner, Yves-Marie Deshays, Matthew Dirst, Elisabeth Joyé, Yannick LeGaillard, Laure Morabito, Pamela Nash, Kristian Nyquist, Mariko Oikawa, Joël Pontet, Christophe Rousset, Heather Slade-Lipkin, Noëlle Spieth, Ann Cecilia Tavares, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Blandine Verlet, Jory Vinikour, Ilton Wjuniski, as well as organists Philippe Bardon, Véronique LeGuen, Frank Mento, and David Noël-Hudson.

Huguette began teaching when she was only fourteen years old, during her family’s stay in Switzerland with relatives after they had fled France over the Alps in December 1942. This was after she had received a first prize in her piano exam at a superior level from the Conservatory of Clermont-Ferrand. When she entered the Conservatory of Lausanne, she enrolled at the virtuoso level and was allowed to pass her final exams in Clermont-Ferrand when the war ended, winning another first prize. After settling in Paris in 1945, she taught privately while she pursued her own studies at the Paris Conservatory, the Ecole Normale de Musique (she also received top prizes at the two schools),⁵ and in Ruggero Gerlin’s two-month summer harpsichord course at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Teaching would remain very important to her all her life, even when she became one of the most important French harpsichordist of her generation. 

It is not commonly known that her earliest protégé was Blandine Verlet, whose individual and distinctive way of playing would have found sustenance in Huguette’s tendency to encourage her students to think for themselves and find their own interpretative styles. Blandine took private lessons with her regularly beginning in 1958, when she was enrolled in Marcelle Delacour’s class at the Paris Conservatory, until as late as 1969 (although less frequently once her own career took off).⁶ It is clear from Huguette’s agendas and documents that she gave her particular attention. On September 16, 1962, Blandine’s father, the distinguished Dr. Pierre Verlet, chief conservator of the Louvre Museum and renowned art historian, wrote: 

Please allow me to express our gratitude to you for all you have done for Blandine. You were a mother to her in Siena, from which she returned this morning, delighted.⁷

In 1963 Blandine was awarded a unanimous first prize from the judges as well as a special prize at the International Competition of Munich. Huguette not only coached her for the competition, but would promote her career in general by introducing her to her own mentors, Alexis Roland-Manuel and Norbert Dufourcq, inviting her to programs on which she was featured, proposing she study with Gerlin in Siena, and inviting her to play on a recording of the Bach concerti in 1965.⁸ In 1969 Dr. Verlet would write regarding a radio program on which Blandine had appeared with Huguette, after having returned from studying with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University:

How to thank you too for the place that you gave to Blandine in the [radio] program. A little secret: in a quick word, two days after her arrival home she said: “I’ve already taken the piece to heart again. . . . Mademoiselle Dreyfus has magnificently made me work. . . .”  Again all my admiration and my gratitude.⁹

In later years, the two women would become estranged, and as a result, Huguette’s teaching and nurturing of Blandine have been overlooked.

From July 1 through August 9, 1966, Huguette gave harpsichord lessons along with Pauline Aubert and Marguerite Roesgen-Champion during an early music event, “Summer in France,” sponsored by the Paris American Academy of Music in Fontainebleau, at the invitation of Nadia Boulanger, its director.¹⁰ In 1967 she was named professor of harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, a position that she kept until 1990. Her students included a young Christophe Rousset, who ended up taking his lessons in her home on Saturdays, because his school schedule did not permit them during the week.¹¹

From 1971 until 1982, Huguette taught basso continuo at the Sorbonne where Olivier Papillon was in her class.¹² When she left there, she asked harpsichordist Richard Siegel to take her place.¹³ During that period Huguette was also the harpsichord professor of what was then a municipal conservatory in Bobigny, just north of Paris. Students in that class included Maria de Lourdes Cutolo and Ilton Wjuniski, who were scholarship recipients from Brazil, Elisabeth Joyé, Joël Pontet, Gaby Delfiner, Renaud Digonnet, and Yannick LeGaillard. In 1982 she was named harpsichord professor at two major conservatories in France: what were then called the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Lyon and the Conservatoire supérieur de région in Rueil-Malmaison. A harpsichord class was created at the latter specifically for her, and also an organ class for Marie-Claire Alain.¹⁴ When it came time to retire, Huguette left the Lyon conservatory in June 1993 (Françoise Lengellé took her place) and then a year later the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory, where Olivier Baumont, a former student and now the professor of harpsichord at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, replaced her.

In addition to her regular teaching positions, Huguette gave annual summer workshops in the Provence region of France, first in Saint-Maximin-La-Baume and then in Villecroze. Claude Mercier-Ythier described how it came about:

An event happened that would be very important for us: the creation of early music classes at Saint-Maximin’s former monastery . . . where there is an extraordinary organ. The young man who should have taught there was Louis Saguer. [However, shortly before he was supposed to start teaching,] he had been invited to give an important series of concerts in Argentina. The organizer, Dr. Pierre Rochas . . . looked desperately for a replacement. So I took him to see Huguette Dreyfus who immediately took on the classes, without knowing that we would spend [15 summers there]. Huguette was a pedagogue without equal, with an international reputation.¹⁵

In 1964, five lecture recitals were held by Huguette. They were so successful that a year later, harpsichord classes were organized.¹⁶ Claude Mercier-Ythier provided the instruments. Her frequent collaborator at the time, Christian Lardé, joined her. He taught flute, and together they gave classes in ensemble playing. The classes were given under the auspices of the French Organ Academy for the Interpretation of 17th and 18th century music (l’Académie de l’orgue français pour l’interprétation de la musique des XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles), which was created not only by Dr. Pierre Rochas, but by a Dominican priest, Father Henri Jarrié, as part of their efforts to save the convent from destruction and restore the famous organ in the basilica. 

Father Jarrié’s contribution to the early music revival in France seems to be unknown; his story is worth telling. Born in 1924, he began his theology studies in the Saint-Maximin monastery. A musician, he had taken piano lessons from the age of six and also composed music. Among the many artists and intellectuals who visited Saint-Maximin was André Coeuroy, a musicologist and critic, who took a look at his compositions and encouraged him. Then at the music festival in Aix-en-Provence, he met Louis Saguer, also a composer, and arranged to study musical analysis and composition with him. In 1952 he received the unusual post of “Chaplain to the Artists” in Nice, coming into contact with Cocteau, Picasso, and Matisse, among others. Then in 1961, Père Jarrié was named parish priest of the village of Saint-Maximin. 

The Dominican order was preparing to sell the monastery there, which they had already left. Father Jarrié and others formed a group to safeguard it, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a cultural center. Father Jarrié inaugurated a series of concerts in the cloisters that became the first festival to focus on early music; at the time, the only music festival that existed in France was in Aix-en-Provence. The Dominican priest and Dr. Pierre Rochas were also responsible for the restoration of the Basilica of Saint Marie-Madeleine’s historic eighteenth-century organ built by Frère Isnard and the creation of the Academy, which together with the concert series would be important not only for Huguette’s career, but also for the international dissemination of early music. For fifteen years, Huguette went there every summer to teach and concertize. Eventually Eduard Melkus joined her and Christian to teach violin. In 1971 Jarrié left the priesthood to consecrate his life to music and teaching:

There were so many students who frequented my courses during 15 years. They came from all over the world and then spread the knowledge that they had acquired in their own respective countries.¹⁷

There were many lighthearted moments that eased the intensity of the lessons. Among Huguette’s archived documents is a Certificat St Maximin: “The Jury certifies that Mlle Huguette Dreyfus and Christian Lardé took the Viennese Waltz class in the performance course at the 15th Summer Academy of St-Maximin. Ed. Melkus.”¹⁸ A participant, harpsichordist Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, remembers playing Brazilian music for Huguette, which she loved, while Eduard improvised on the violin.¹⁹

Maria de Lourdes Cutolo and Ilton Wjuniski were two young Brazilian harpsichordists whom Huguette had met in São Paôlo, then the capital of Brazil, on the occasion of the “Course-Festival of Harpsichord Interpretation” held in São Paôlo’s major art museum (MASP) from October to December 1975. The courses were taught by Helena Jank, Maria Helena Silveira, and Felipe Silvestre. New works for solo harpsichord were commissioned from composers Souza Lima, Osvaldo Lacerda, and Almeida Prado. Huguette was invited to give classes and recitals from October 3 through 26. During her stay, she flew to Rio to meet Roberto de Regina, an important harpsichordist, teacher, and the first to build a harpsichord in Brazil.²⁰ He also created the first early music group there.²¹

Huguette’s teaching influenced several pupils profoundly. “Stimulated by this contact, some young artists pursued training with the harpsichordist in France, such as Ilton Wjuniski, Maria Lucia Nogueira, and Maria de Lourdes Cutolo.”²² They were awarded scholarships by the festival sponsor, the Secretary of Culture, Science, and Technology, to come to France.²³ A decade later, Ana Cecilia Tavares, another Brazilian artist, would also go to study with Huguette at the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory near Paris.²⁴ Harpsichordist, teacher, and author Marcelo Fagerlande credits Huguette with the surge in interest for the harpsichord in Brazil after her stay there.

Maria Lourdes de Cutolo wrote to Huguette several times in early 1976 to solicit her help in finding lodgings in Paris and a spinet to use. Huguette sent her information on spinets, but in the end, moved her own spinet into a spare bedroom, where Maria could practice every day if she liked.²⁵ Huguette often helped students with practical concerns as well as with personal problems, at the same time guarding a professional distance. She maintained the reserve between people of different positions, or those who do not know each other well, that prevails in European culture: the maestro or maestra is treated with respect, and familiarity would be inappropriate. Her students were invited to address her by her first name, but never would have thought to address her by the familiar “tu.”

Another country important to Huguette was Japan, where she made lifelong friendships. She met a Japanese student, Miwako Shiraï, at Saint-Maximin where the flautist was studying with Christian Lardé. When Huguette was invited in 1979 by Mariko Oikawa, a former student in France, to play concerts in Japan and record an album with the group, Tokyo Solisten, of which Mariko was the harpsichordist, she called upon Miwako to accompany her and act as translator. In Japan, Huguette was welcomed by the father of another of her students, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, who had come to France in 1976. Her father, wanting to introduce the ever-curious Huguette to Japanese culture, invited her to an “exceptional restaurant where there is Shiki-botyo, the knife ceremony, which was performed in the past by the cook to the Japanese court. The cook prepares fish without touching it with his hands.”

Huguette returned to Japan in 1981. During Huguette’s free time, Mariko and her husband Shigeru, with their daughter Reine, about three, took her on visits. Yasuko came from France to stay for a week at the urging of her father who, grateful that Yasuko had won first prize at the Festival Estival international harpsichord competition in Paris in 1979, wanted to honor Huguette. He presented her with a stay at a traditional Japanese hotel. Yasuko went with Huguette and Mariko to Nara Park (Shigeru had to take Reine back to Tokyo), where thousands of deer run free and it is possible to feed and pet them.²⁶

In 1983 Huguette spent nearly a month in Japan from October 8 through November 4, recording for Denon and performing in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Kyoto. In her free time, she went sightseeing often with the Oikawa family:

The trip that left the biggest impression was our voyage to Kyoto. We visited Nara Park the day before her concert in Kyoto. She found herself surrounded by deer and she said that she was astonished that the most easily frightened animals in the world would eat out of the palm of a man’s hand. She spent a good amount of time playing with them. We also went by car to Hakone. Descending Mount Hakone, we encountered the historic Daimyô procession. We watched it and then walking in the city of Odawara, we visited the chrysanthemum festival.²⁷

Huguette would return to Japan in the future, but sadly, Mariko would not be there to welcome her. Only thirty-nine-years old, she passed away from cancer on July 25, 1988, leaving behind two children, Reine, and a boy, Kentaro,  born in 1984. Fifteen years later, Reine would become a harpsichordist herself and come to France intermittently to study with Huguette at Villecroze and in her home on Quai d’Orsay in Paris.

In 1979 Huguette left the Academy in Saint-Maximin. In 1983 she joined the Académie de Musique Ancienne in Villecroze to give summer masterclasses, which she did until 2008. Claude Mercier-Ythier, who had loaned his historic 1754 Henri Hemsch, Huguette’s favorite instrument, for the Saint-Maximin sessions, continued to supply it and other harpsichords for the classes at Villecroze. At both academies, friends, including Melkus, Lardé, and his wife, harpist Marie-Claire Jamet, joined her to concertize and give instrumental and chamber music classes. In Villecroze classes were held in the morning, and afternoons were free, when students practiced and swam in the pool. Sunday was a day off, and there were group outings organized for them, such as boat rides and sightseeing. It was “paradise on earth,” according to one of the students, Kristian Nyquist.²⁸

In addition to masterclasses in France during the summer, Huguette was invited regularly to give them all over the world. She also sat on juries for harpsichord exams at conservatories and for harpsichord festivals. For at least twenty-five years, there was a biennial international harpsichord festival in October in Paris, the Festival Estival. Huguette was often on the jury, and in February 1990 she was invited to write a page for the brochure celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its creation on March 7 that year.²⁹ Often she sat on juries with friends, former students, and other distinguished colleagues, such as Colin Tilney, Zuzana Ružicková, Rafael Puyana, Gustav Leonhardt, Scott Ross, Kenneth Gilbert, and Luciano Sgrizzi.

Three radio programs in 1979³⁰ featured her and some of her students at the Bobigny Conservatory: Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Christophe Rousset, and Ilton Wjuniski. When asked what she told students who express a desire to pursue a career, she called it a very big responsibility and said she tended to discourage the idea. By discouraging them, she meant that she did not want to “throw rose powder in their eyes and mislead” anyone. She would tell a student, “A career is very difficult even if you are very talented and are supported by your family. Your field has to be well learned, which takes a lot of time. It takes time to launch a career, and it requires a lot of courage.” Huguette herself had suffered big obstacles to her own career and had worked very hard and made sacrifices. But she knew that if the student was possessed “by the demon of music, by the demon of the stage, by the demon of a career,” nothing she said could change his or her mind. “The true, the pure artist will remain.” She recognized that the mere fact of playing before one’s peers in a classroom was already very intimidating, and she took her role very seriously. “The tighter the relationship between student and teacher is, the more the teacher has to pay attention.”³¹

When possible, Huguette gave her students the chance to perform publicly on radio programs where she herself was featured, and a few played on recordings of hers. Among her documents is a letter from a well-known French harpsichordist who was her student in the 1970s, “I know what I owe you, . . . you are the person who counts most in my harpsichord vocation.”³² Her kindness and generosity is still remembered today. She often gave students rides to the summer workshops in Saint-Maximin and Villecroze, which could not be reached directly by train. One of her American students, Ellen Haskil Maserati, remembers their trip to Siena to take Gerlin’s class, “She was really nice when we drove down. We stopped overnight in Lyon. She took me to dinner and had me try all the local food. She was very motherly.”³³

Her genius for teaching resided in her wanting to respond personally to her students, feeling that a teacher should always understand the personality of the student and determine what possibilities there were to develop. During the lessons she was demanding, but she did not ask for obedience. Her intention was not to impose her ideas; she preferred that the student have his or her own. In this approach, it is possible to see the influence of her teachers at the Paris Conservatory. One teacher, Norbert Dufourcq, when grading an essay she had written on the “different manifestations of choral music in the vocal works of Bach,” noted, “You have read many texts . . . to the point where [your essay ends up sounding] a bit like a catalog sometimes. What is lacking is a personal judgment, a thought that is yours and the fruit of your reflections as a good musician.” Also, Huguette’s pedagogy teacher, a Mr. Norpain, had given advice that she clearly had taken to heart, “Before speaking, listen to the student with so much attention that you immediately get a clear idea of his strengths and weaknesses.”³⁴

During a radio broadcast from Ville-croze on November 9, 2000,³⁵ Huguette said in the course of a masterclass: 

As far as I’m concerned, you arrive at technique through the music and not the other way around. . . . When you have something you want to express but you don’t have the technical means to express it, it’s up to you to find exercises that will permit acquiring those means. . . . To learn a sensitive touch, the finger has to feel the plectrum scratch the string. [She felt that “plucking the string” was not an accurate term.] There is an important relationship between the sensitivity of the fingers and the ear, and that’s what you must work on. The ear must hear differences. . . that makes part of the everyday work when you’re doing finger exercises. In fact, it’s musical, and I personally feel that no exercise should ever be done mechanically. You must always be in conversation with the music. Even if you do so-called daily exercises, you can always find these passages in pieces. You have to consider them musically. I always use as a reference the human voice or a wind instrument for understanding how to let the music breathe.³⁶

Huguette was famous with her students for her frequently repeated “proverbes dreyfusiens.” One student, Chiao Pin Kuo, remembered some of these aphorisms in a tribute to her after her death: 

The notes are not the music, the music lies between them.

When you play a piece, the listener has to understand everything as if he has the music in front of his eyes.

Without respiration, the music is dead.

To breathe is not to slow down, slowing down is not breathing.

It’s not enough to know how to play, you have to have a wide knowledge of not only harpsichord music but of all forms of art. If you are small-minded, you won’t ever be a great musician.

Practice, listen, converse, and feel the composer speaking.³⁷

Up until now, I have spoken in the third person. But now, as one of Huguette’s former students and friends, I will speak in the first person. It has been nearly a quarter of a century since I studied with her during her last three years at the Conservatoire de Rueil-Malmaison. But she made such an impact on me that I still recall most of her teachings. I had never had the opportunity to study with someone of her caliber before and must have realized that every bit of the experience was precious and needed to be carefully stored away in my memory. I was a middle-aged amateur pianist, and the first chance I ever had even to touch a harpsichord came the year before when I started taking lessons from the American harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour. He was in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship to perfect his prior training with Huguette and Kenneth Gilbert. It was Jory who encouraged me to audition for Huguette to enter her class at the conservatory. Despite trembling hands, I played for her and was accepted.

In our class at Rueil-Malmaison, we always celebrated birthdays, especially hers. One year, we threw a surprise party for her in the apartment of her cousin, Nicole Dreyfus (a famous attorney in France). Four students played variations of “Happy Birthday,” squeezed together at Nicole’s piano, I and another improvised a tango, and four held up one of her aphorisms, written out on pieces of paper. Huguette would have all her students over to dinner after the year-end exams, serving chocolate cake she had baked herself. At the conservatory, it was forbidden to eat in the teaching room, but Huguette installed a coffee maker, and we often ate our lunches there and celebrated birthdays and holidays with cake and champagne.

What Huguette taught me did not only concern the keyboard and written notes—it had to do with how to practice, making the instrument sing, acquiring the confidence to play difficult pieces, performing. . . . She said I could go as far as I wanted to in my playing, and I ended up being able to play pieces that I never would have been able to before. Her observations were always accurate, and her comments always constructive; Huguette could also say much with just an evocative gesture. All of this advice enabled me to play in public and be awarded a unanimous first prize in a jury exam, which would have been impossible before I studied with her: 

Listen to the bass.

To feel the beat and speed of a piece, walk ‘round the room, singing the melody.

To perform a piece, it needs to be more than 100% ready.

Be aware of the environment in which you’re practicing at home. When you’re learning a piece, the brain is storing it, not as isolated bits of information, but in its whole context, which will be reproduced when you perform.

Have everything prepared for performance, including the music so there are no loose pages to get lost or fall on the floor.

Listen to what you play all the way to the end. 

When one hand is playing a tricky passage, listen to the other one. (This was particularly effective when I was learning how to play ornaments.)

All that counts is the music.

Learning a fugue, sing each part separately. As you play one voice, add a second one with the other hand. Practice playing one voice while you sing with the other. While you play all the voices, follow each one individually. 

Playing each part hands together strengthens how it’s learned in the brain.

Don’t think about the notes. Imagine the trouble a centipede would have walking if it thought about how it moved!

Huguette rarely noted anything on my music, except to circle rests and add fingering—but only occasionally. More often, she would come by and tap on my shoulders, which had risen up to my ears with tension (terror, because of playing in front of the class, might be the more accurate word!). This recurring at every lesson, she showed me some exercises to relax them. She did not insist about fingering, saying that it was an individual decision, given that hands are different. Giving Glenn Gould as an example, Huguette pointed out that artists could sit or hold their arms in the “wrong ways” and still be brilliant.

Her own musicality was extraordinary. Once when I was playing in class, a woman from the conservatory office came to the door. Huguette told me to keep playing and went to speak to her. Suddenly she interrupted herself to call out to me, “B-flat!” I had made a mistake, and she heard it despite their conversation.

Referring to her practice of going to see something beautiful at a museum before giving a concert, she said in an interview with an Italian reporter, “It’s like giving water to a flower for it to bloom easily.”³⁸ To me, this quote could be a metaphor for her teaching. Once, when I was visiting her in the hospital before her death—some of her other students and I were in touch so as to maintain a continuous flow of visits—a nurse asked me if we were Huguette’s family members. “No,” I responded, “we’re the flowers in her garden,” knowing I’d puzzle her, but not finding any other apt way to put it in my distress. Now that I have gathered testimonials for a commemorative issue, I see that others felt as inspired and nurtured by her as I did, such as Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard who wrote, “She transmitted her love of music to me.”³⁹ Huguette could draw the best out of a student, and in my case, it changed the way I thought about myself and my capacities. Her next step was to help give me the capabilities to play the music I chose. Huguette took me as seriously as she would have if I had been young and a prospective professional. As another adult amateur student said, “Gratitude is the greatest homage that one can pay her.”⁴⁰

To be continued.

Notes

1. “The budding lilies,” title of the first piece by François Couperin in his 13ème Ordre, Troisième Livre. 

2. Email to author, December 7, 2016.

3. Radio interview, “Denis Herlin,” Les traversés du temps, France Musique, March 21, 2012.

4. Radio interview by Marcel Quillévère, “Huguette Dreyfus claveciniste,” Les traversés du temps, France Musique, March 7, 2012.

5. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

6. Agendes, BnF VM FONDS DRE-3 (5).

7. Letter from Pierre Verlet to Huguette Dreyfus, September 16, 1962, BnF VM Fonds 145-DRE (23). 

8. LP, The complete concerti for harpsichord, J. S. Bach, “A Critère recording,” Paris. Musidisc, France. New York: Nonesuch, HE 73001, 1965. Complete discography of Huguette Dreyfus compiled by the author. dolmetsch.com/huguettedreyfusdiscography.htm. 

9. Letter from Pierre Verlet to Huguette Dreyfus, July 15, 1969, op. cit.

10. Brochure, Paris American Academy of Music, “Summer in France,” 1966. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

11. Christophe Rousset, in emails to the author between 2016 and 2023.

12. Olivier Papillon, phone interviews with author, December 16, 2016, April 6 and
10, 2017.

13. Richard Siegel, interview with author, November 17, 2016, Paris, France.

14. Susan Lansdale, interview with author, March 23, 2018, Le Pecq, France. 

15. Claude Mercier-Ythier, in tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, Clavecins en France (CLEF) clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. Translated from French by the author.

16. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, Les traversés du temps, op. cit.

17. “Toujours jeune, L’Académie d’été, 40 ans déja.” Orgues Nouvelles, No. 15, Summer 2008, Lyon.

18. BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

19. Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, email to author, March 20, 2022.

20. Marcelo Fagerlande, phone interview with author, October 21, 2022.

21. bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Regina-Roberto.htm. 

22. Marcelo Fagerlande, Mayra Pereira, and Maria Aida Barroso, O Cravo no Rio de Janeiro do século XX. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Books, 2020. 

23. Ilton Wjuniski, tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, 2013.

24. Ana Cecilia Tavares, tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, 2022.

25. Letters from Maria de Lourdes Cutolo to Huguette Dreyfus, January 14 and February 2, 1976 BNF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (17).

26. Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, emails to author, January 2023.

27. Shigeru Oikawa, letter to author, September 25, 2017, and tribute, January 2023.

28. Kristian Nyquist, interview on April 27, 2017, and later phone calls and emails. 

29. BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12). 

30. ‘Musiciens pour demain,” François Serrette, France Musique, February 15 and 22, 1979. 

31. “Musiciens pour demain,” op.cit., radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/les-tresors-de-france-musique/musiciens-pour-demain-avec-huguette-dreyfus-et-christophe-rousset-une-archive-de-1979-4597434.

32. Letter from Noëlle Spieth to Huguette Dreyfus, BnF VM Fonds 145 DRE-1 (17).

33. Ellen Haskil Maserati, interview with author, June 2018, Paris.

34. BnF VM FONDS DRE-3 (1).

35. Villecroze: l’atelier de clavecin de Huguette Dreyfus, Les chemins de la musique,  France Culture, Radio France, broadcast November 9, 2000.

36. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, L’Académie musicale de Villecroze, November 22, 2000. 

37. Translated from French by the author.  clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. 

38. Huguette Dreyfus interview, Corriere dell’Umbria, February 18, 1999. Translated from Italian to English by the author.

39. Email to author, January 5, 2023.

40. Pascal da Silva Texeira, email to author, December 2016.

Steven Young

Steven Young is a professor of music at Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in music theory and directs the University’s choral ensembles. He is also organist at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Providence, Rhode Island. Young has presented papers and performances for regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the American Choral Directors Association. He research interests focus on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French organist/composers, and he has written several feature articles and reviews for The Diapason. He also wrote the liner notes for Christine Kamp’s series of recordings of the organ works of Louis Vierne on the Festivo label. Young has recorded several of the works of Boston organist/composer Henry M. Dunham on the AFKA label.

In October 1926, just a month before his death, Aloÿs Claussmann chatted with an old friend, Claude Nievre, a writer for La Montagne, a newspaper whose office was directly below the apartment where Claussmann lay dying. Nievre had written an article titled “Un grand talent méconnu, Claussmann, musicien et compositeur” (An underestimated talent, Claussmann, musician and composer).¹ Among other things, Nievre made the point that Claussmann’s many years of service to his community of Clermont-Ferrand should be rewarded by naming him to the Legion d’honneur, the highest civilian award given by the country to celebrate accomplishments given in service to one’s country. Claussmann had spent fifty years selflessly serving the musical and religious community of Clermont-Ferrand with little or no thought to promoting his own career as performer, teacher, or composer. Sadly, the award was never granted to Claussmann, despite the efforts of all his friends and colleagues. However, his tireless efforts bore many wonderful fruits in terms of quality students, artistic performances, and respected compositions.

A native of the Alsace region of France, born in Uffholz on July 5, 1850, Claussmann began piano lessons at age 11 with his uncle, a local musician and teacher. Following those lessons, Claussmann studied at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-sous-Rougemont. Between 1868 and 1870, he studied with organ virtuoso Eugène Gigout at l’École Niedermeyer in Paris, during which time he was awarded the premier prix in both piano and organ.

Interrupting his studies, Claussmann returned to Uffholz to perform his military service in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871. When Alsace was lost to Germany at the end of the war, Claussmann opted to retain his French citizenship. He returned to Paris to complete his studies, where he distinguished himself as both performer and composer, earning the grand prix de composition in 1872 from l’École Niedermeyer.

In 1873, the position of maître de Chapelle at the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand became available. Claussmann applied and was offered the position. He accepted it, and remained in Clermont-Ferrand for the entirety of his career, possibly to his professional detriment. Nonetheless, according to one writer, Claussmann wasted no time in establishing himself as a first-rate musician.²

In 1877, shortly after his appointment, the cathedral acquired a new organ with three manuals and forty-eight ranks of pipes, built by the Merklin firm, one of the most respected in France. The dedication program featured Edmond Lemaigre, then titular organist of the cathedral, and Alexander Guilmant, renowned organist. Claussmann participated as well, conducting two motets, including a Salve Regina of his own, newly composed for the event, and performing two organ works, one by François Benoist and another new work, also written by Claussmann, Offertoire.³

Claussmann’s musical work was not limited to his position at the cathedral. In 1881, Claussmann established the short-lived Société Philharmonique. Though enjoying only a brief existence, this may have been the first orchestra to provide written critical program notes for its concerts, attesting to Claussmann’s scholarly inclinations.⁴ Shortly thereafter, in 1886, he assumed position as organist titulaire, following Edmond Lemaigre’s relocation to Paris. It was at this tribune that Claussmann remained until his death in 1926.

During his tenure he composed the majority of his works for the organ (approximately 350 pieces), nearly a hundred for the piano, a fair number of songs, and a few other works for chamber ensembles and orchestra.⁵ Claussmann’s next big success was the premiere performance of his commissioned drame lyrique, Pierre, l’Eremite, composed to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the First Crusade (the text of the work was by the Abbé Raynaud). Written in 1892, the work awaited its premiere for three years. According to the reports, it was a resounding success, performed at least two times (May 15 and 17, 1895). The reviewer, while admitting that one could not analyze such a large work on one hearing, admired its beauty in both composition and performance.⁶ The performance featured an orchestra of sixty, a chorus of 200, and soloists, all led by Claussmann. It must have been quite the tour de force!

In 1909, Claussmann was appointed director of L’École municipal de Musique, and he remained its director until 1918 when he suffered from a serious health crisis that disabled him for nearly three months, at which point he was named honorary director, and Louis Gémont assumed directorship.⁷ The formation of this school was fraught with difficulties. Prior to its founding, there were two competing institutes, the Petit Conservatoire, headed by Jean Soulacroup, and the École de musique, directed by Louis Gémont, both of whom were considered for the position of director of the École nationale de musique. After several years of contentious battles about the school, and once it was decided to move ahead with the formation of a national music school that would align itself with the Conservatoire nationale in Paris, a closed door meeting took place, and Claussmann was named as director to the pleasure of many community members, and the displeasure of others, including the mayor of the city.⁸ Claussmann accepted, but wrote, with apparent jocularity, that if the conservatory were to open as planned, the undertaking would be substantial, and it would force him to cut his annual vacation very short. He did exactly that, and served with distinction for many years.

Little is known of Claussmann’s personal life; there are few letters and no personal papers. In 1877, he married Marguerite Barthélémy, and they had a daughter, Madeleine, in 1878. It is presumed that his wife predeceased him, based on the eulogies given at his funeral.⁹ According to Joseph Desaymard, writer and critic, who was his pupil and friend, Claussmann possessed a gentle spirit, keen intellect, good sense of humor, and youthful attitude.¹⁰ He rode his bike to work every day, and until the final few years of his life, he appears to have possessed good health.

Unfortunately, little is known about the critical reception of his work, at least in France. The local newspaper of Clermont-Ferrand rarely commented on musical events. However, the Société nationale included his Sonate pour violon et piano on a concert in May 1906, and the composition and performance received an extensive review reprinted in the Revue pratique de Liturgie et de Musique sacrée. The reviewer praised Claussmann’s melodic gift, his interesting harmonies, and his well-crafted forms.¹¹ This seems to be the generally held view of Claussmann as a composer.

Claussmann’s vast output of organ works includes music for any number of occasions. The two large collections, Cent pieces pour orgue ou harmonium, opus 34, and Cent pieces pour grand orgue, opus 66, encompass smaller works designed for liturgical usage, such as Entrées, Communions, and Sorties.¹² Undoubtedly he used these pieces himself over his fifty-year career at the cathedral.¹³ Even in these smaller works, Claussmann demonstrates substantial contrapuntal skill. The Entrée in D Minor, which opens opus 66, is only 63 measures long, yet it displays Claussmann’s fascination with counterpoint and with Franck, as the theme appears twice, in related keys, and then, upon returning to the tonic, is subjected to canonic treatment throughout (Example 1). The ninth piece in this set provides further evidence of Claussmann’s meticulous craftsmanship. While only 29 measures long, it has a tripartite form in which the return of the opening A section receives a new accompaniment with the melody moved to the left hand. In terms of larger organ works, Claussmann penned two sonatas, a Suite pour orgue, and several Livraisons containing varying numbers of pieces likely intended for concert use. These include fantaisias, pastorales, marches, toccatas, and many others. In these works one sees Claussmann’s wide-ranging inventiveness with their well-developed themes and solidly crafted counterpoint.

While steeped in the style of the Romantic era, the organ music often displays surprising originality. From the earliest opera, Claussmann combines both French and German styles, which may be the result of his earliest influences in Uffholtz, an area of France that reflected a great deal of Germanic influence due to its shared border with Germany. For example, opus 16 is entitled Orgelstücke rather than Pièces pour orgue. In the music, one often finds well-crafted melodies, a staple of the French tradition, fused with the intricate counterpoint that is intrinsic to German composition, making Claussmann’s organ music unique for its time.¹⁴ Claussmann’s fusion of the aforementioned styles is evidenced in Scherzo in G Major, opus 33, no. 4. While making use of a rather extended model of the scherzo and trio form—ABA′CA′, which resembles more of a Rondo—the typical French scherzo would not make use of the extensive counterpoint found in the fugal exposition that comprises the B section (in B minor). The fourth section, which itself is a small three-part form in the key of E-flat major, has a very lyrical melody for the outer parts and, again, the composer briefly employs some imitative polyphony in the middle portion.

Though Claussmann’s music is influenced by the style of César Franck, as evidenced in the Allegro symphonique, opus 33, no. 2, whose opening recalls Franck’s Pièce heroïque (Example 2), Claussmann often moves into unusual areas of tonality through his inspired use of chromaticism, following on and expanding the chromatic harmonic language of Franck. One even finds an example of progressive harmonic movement in some of Claussmann’s works, such as Pastorale, opus 26, no. 3, which begins in E major and ends in A minor, delivering an unexpected conclusion.¹⁵

In the United States, as early as 1892, one finds references to performances of Claussmann’s music. A concert review in the Indianapolis Journal accorded the Scherzo in A Minor a favorable assessment.¹⁶ (One assumes that the reviewer had heard other Claussmann pieces.) Several of the pieces from opus 26 were dedicated to American organists, including Clarence Eddy and William C. Carl, both former students of Alexandre Guilmant. (It is possible that Guilmant helped make the connection by recommending the works to Carl. Guilmant participated in the dedication of the organ at the Clermont-Ferrand cathedral in 1887 where he would have heard Claussmann’s music. It is also possible that Gigout recommended his music to Carl.¹⁷) The first volume of opus 16 was reviewed favorably by Everett Truette in The Organ, 1893, who wrote, “Three extremely interesting pieces . . . which are written somewhat in the style of reveries, and contain many passages of striking originality.”¹⁸ (It was of this Fantaisie in C Minor that Gigout wrote his praise of Claussmann.¹⁹) It is likely because of the work of Carl and Truette, who published some of this music in The Organ and other collections, that Claussmann’s music achieved some measure of popularity in America. Early twentieth-century newspaper accounts indicate that several of Claussmann’s works were performed quite regularly, especially Easter Dawn and Grand Choeur for organ and his Magnificat for choir.

Among other comments on Claussmann’s works, Pierre Balme linked him to a progressive aesthetic:

In his day, Claussmann had difficulty with being a ‘pioneer,’ even in spite of the example of his co-disciple Fauré, who remained all through to the end of his time, as innovative as younger composers. But why not have others reported rather how much he (Claussmann) was, in his prime, so profoundly ahead of the taste and knowledge of audiences and even music professionals? Twenty years ago, he was not afraid of modifying his composing technique according to the latest developments of the impressionist school.²⁰

Connecting Claussmann to the Impressionist school seems to be a stretch, though examples of augmented triads and unexpected harmonic connections are evident, as is the use of non-functional harmony, as witnessed in the frequent use of the raised fourth and fifth scale degrees, creating the sensation of whole-tone harmony. If this is what Balme refers to, then it is possible to put Claussmann in that category. However, Claussmann’s music is thoroughly steeped in the chromatic harmony of the period, and he often makes unexpected harmonic connections, such as moving between C major and F-sharp major for the middle section of the Fantaisie in C Minor, opus 10. These unexpected relationships may also be seen in the transitional passages of Au Crépusucle from opus 33, where the dominant seventh chord of the tonic G-flat resolves to a D major sonority, which is then repeated whole step below, obscuring any sense of the tonic (Example 3). If this fluidity of key relationships is considered “impressionistic” by the writer, then the term applies.

Overall, Claussmann retains a consistent style throughout his other music; one finds equally challenging tonal relationships in most pieces. Additionally, his treatment of form does not necessarily conform to expectations of his era, but a clear structure is always evident and logical. One might apply musicologist Carlo Caballero’s argument about Fauré, who he claims maintained the consistency of style throughout his works, which Fauré believes was “a crucial property of any music that is truly original,”²¹ and apply that to Claussmann as well. Hervé Desarbre would agree, according to the liner notes to his recording of selected organ works, as he claims that Claussmann’s style did not change much over the years.²² Claussmann retained remarkable consistency in his technical style and tonal language beginning with the major organ works from opus 10 and continuing through the late opera.

Many of Claussmann’s works have been recently republished, some with needed editorial emendations, as the printed editions contain numerous errors (especially clef change indications).²³ As there appear to be no extant manuscripts, it is difficult to know Claussmann’s intentions. Both B-note Musikverlag and FitzJohn Publishing have reproduced many of his works. IMSLP (www.imslp.org) has a reasonable collection available, and France’s Bibliothèque Nationale Gallica site had started to digitize many other works.

Whether Claussmann would have enjoyed the success his contemporaries did had he remained in Paris is a question that can never be answered. He made his choice, apparently without regrets, and enjoyed the respect of the community he served for nearly fifty years. The music of this underestimated talent attests to the mastery of his craft and the fertility of his imagination, and deserves to be re-examined and given a place in the concert repertoire.

Notes

1. Claude Nievre, La Montagne, October 12, 1926, p. 2.

2. Th. Mourgue, “Profil d’artistes: M. Claussmann,” Le Moniteur, June 29, 1892, p. 2.
“. . .il vient s’etabilir chez nous où on ne tarde pas à reconnaitra en lui un musician de premiere ordre.”

3. J. Merklin, Le cathédrale de Clermont-Ferrand et ses orgues, Lyon: Impr. de A.-L. Perrin et Marinet (1878), p. 28. As with others, Offertoire served as a common title for works; Claussmann wrote several.

4. Joseph Desaymard, Avenir du Plateau Central, November 8, 1926, writing Claussmann’s obituary (No page citation as this comes from the Bibliothèque de la Patrimoine of Clermont-Ferrand collection MS 1654). Present research has yet to find concert announcements or programs presented. In 1885, another community orchestra was formed which enjoyed much success, directed by Jean Soulacroup.

5. Cataloguing the works of Claussmann has presented a challenge. Pierre Desaymard made an attempt at this in the 1980s but seems to have missed some pieces. Four of the works from opus 33 do not appear in any listing of his, possibly because they were published by the English firm J. Laudy and Co. See Desaymard, Bibliographie des oeuvres d’Aloys Claussman, Bulletin historique et scientifique de l’Auvergne, vol. 1.90, pp. 305–321 (1981).

6. Le Moniteur, May 16, 1895, p. 2, and May 18, 1895, p. 2. According to Louis Gémont, the work was performed again in 1925 (Le Moniteur, November 11, 1926, p. 2).

7. In a letter to Paul Dukas, Claussmann thought that he was close to death at that time (Bibliothêque Nationale, Paris, W-48).

8. Jean-Louis Jam, “Aux origins d’une succursale provinciale du Conservatoire de Paris,” Bulletin historique et artistique de l’Auvergne, vol. XCIX (1998), pp. 127–156. An excellent and somewhat entertaining chronicle of the events.

9. Le Moniteur, November 11, 1926, p. 2.

10. Joseph Desaymard, “Le Mort de Claussmann,” L’Avenir, Nov. 9, 1926, p. 2.

11. Alexandre Georges on “Aloys Claussmann,” Revue pratique de liturgie at de la musique sacrée, nos. 103–104 (1926), p. 169.

12. These sets appear to be based upon Franck’s L’Organiste, but Claussmann’s pieces are more technically advanced.

13. In one edition of Le Courrier Musical, opus 64 was listed among the pieces that an organist should play.

14. While the fugue was certainly not an uncommon form in French organ music of this period, it was used relatively infrequently. Franck composed one fugue for the organ; he relied on canon and melodic juxtapositioning as his preferred contrapuntal devices. In examining the Widor organ symphonies, with their numerous and varied movements, one finds only two fugues, and those appear in the earliest of the symphonies.

15. This work is dedicated to R. Huntington Woodman, an American organist who studied with César Franck in 1888.

16. Indianapolis Journal, March 11, 1894, p. 8, featured a review of an organ recital by
W. H. Donley. I believe this refers to the Scherzo in B Minor from the Deuxième livre de la première collection, opus 10.

17. Gigout wrote glowingly of Claussmann’s work and was pleased to be the dedicatee of one of his pieces. See Mourgue, op. cit.

18. Everett E. Truette, The Organ, vol. 1, no. 4 (August 1892), p. 95, reviewing the Fantasia in C Minor, First Meditation in B Major, and Andante in D Major.

19. See Morgue, op. cit.

20. Pierre Balme, “Aloÿs Claussmann,” L’Auvergne littéraire, artistique, et historique, January 1926 (vol. 85), p. 15–17.

21. Peter Cirka, A profound identity: evidence of homogeneity in Gabriel Fauré’s thirteen piano Nocturnes. Unpublished DMA paper, Boston University, p. 9, and p. 26 (2015).

22. Hervé Desarbre, Aloys Claussmann Organ Works, Disque Mandala MAN 4927, 1997.

23. An example of the need for good editing appears in the Sérénade for Cello and Piano, opus 49. The cello part and the piano score have completely different notes and keys in places.

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

 A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster Fournier studied piano and violin before taking organ lessons at the age of thirteen with Gary Zwicky. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College Conservatory, Wheaton, Illinois, with Gladys Christensen, and a master’s degree from New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts, with Yuko Hayashi, she continued her organ studies in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain, André Isoir, and Michel Chapuis. During the summers of 1976 and 1977, she studied organ with Wolfgang Rübsam at Northwestern University. She received Premiers Prix in organ at the conservatories in Rueil-Malmaison and Boulogne-Billancourt, a master’s degree in music education with highest distinction at the Sorbonne in Paris, and a Ph.D. in musicology with honors at Tours University for her doctoral thesis on Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s secular organs. Organist at the American Cathedral in 1988 and 1989, she was then appointed titular of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at the Church of the Holy Trinity, where she founded a weekly noontime concert series. After thirty-three years of faithful service, she was named Honorary Choir Organist.

An international concert organist, in 2007 the French Cultural Minister awarded Shuster Fournier the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2022 Delatour France Editions published the English translation she made with Connie Glessner of Helga Schauerte’s book, Jehan Alain, Understanding His Musical Genius. She has made recordings and contributed to specialized reviews and to Fugue State Films Documentaries.

César Franck: a worthy heir to François Benoist and Alexis Chauvet in promoting Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ works

César Franck (1822–1890) taught organ at the Paris Conservatory for eighteen years, from 1872 to 1890. François Benoist preceded him as organ professor from 1819 to 1872, and Charles-Marie Widor succeeded him from 1890 to 1896. What were the circumstances that led to Franck’s nomination to this institution sponsored by the French government? Who were his students? What were his pedagogical principles? How did they differ from those of his successor? Did he leave a legacy?

Much is known about the life of this child prodigy whose authoritarian father, Nicolas Joseph Franck (1794–1871), a modest bank employee and an amateur musician, had exploited his talents and those of his younger brother Joseph (1825–1891) after their musical education at the Royal School of Music in Liège, Belgium.¹ It is certainly thanks to Pauline García that César Franck came to Paris to study privately with her professor, Anton Reicha.² They met in Brussels on April 25, 1835. She highly appreciated his agile and energetic musicianship when accompanying her sister Maria Malibran. From June 24, 1835, to May 11, 1836,³ like Pauline García, Franck embraced Reicha’s free spirit, his vast Germanic cultural outlook, his interest in the writings of Kant and Aristotle, his faithfulness to past German masters, and his love of architectural compositional structure and canonic writing manifest in his 36 Fugues (1805).

Equipped with this musical baggage, César Franck studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he won a first prize in piano in 1838, a first prize in counterpoint and fugue in 1840, and a second prize in organ in 1841. This sufficed for his shrewd father, who made him leave the conservatory on April 22, 1842, to earn his living as a music professor and concert artist. In October 1838 at the age of sixteen, Franck began teaching piano and harmony with his brother, Joseph, from their home at 22, rue Montholon in the New Athens neighborhood. The brothers were inspired by Anton Reicha’s visionary pedagogy.⁴ He then gave music lessons at the Collège Rollin (now the Jacques-Decour High School [Collège-Lycée]), at the Augustinian College of the Assumption (234, Faubourg Saint-Honoré), at an Institution for Young Girls in Auteuil, and in the autumn of 1852 at the Jesuit High School [Collège] of the Immaculate Conception in Vaugirard, where Henri Duparc and Arthur Coquard experienced his “musical rhetoric:”⁵

renown as “a nearly mysterious” professor . . . who was at once ingenious, with a peculiar face and a delightfully pleasant and a comical manner of dressing. He seemed to have the piety of a saint, and that filled us with an artistic awe . . . whose expression, really exuded a gentle manner, happiness, honesty, which were hardly terrestrial.⁶

César’s assiduous teaching enabled him to escape his father’s exploitation of his talents. He married one of his students, Félicité Desmousseaux, on February 22, 1848, at Notre-Dame de Lorette Church, where he had been the choir organist since 1845. His son Georges was born at the end of the year. Franck felt very comfortable in this New Athens neighborhood where cosmopolitan artists such as Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Franz Liszt, Chevalier Sigismund Neukomm, and his piano professor, Pierre Zimmermann, played J. S. Bach’s music.

On May 15, 1851, the year Franck was appointed titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Jean-Saint-François Church, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll installed his first organ with a thirty-note German-style pedalboard in Pauline García-Viardot’s home at 48, rue de Douai. Nine months later, on January 16, 1852, these musicians all attended a performance by Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens of Bach’s works on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church. Following this concert, François Benoist wrote to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll:

That which especially struck me was this calm and religious greatness and this severe style which is so appropriate to the majesty of God’s temple. . . . It is a great merit, in my viewpoint, to rest faithful to the traditions of the grand masters who, in the past century, had founded the true art of the organ.⁷

Franck had lived at 69, rue Blanche, in the same building as Adèle Blanc, who married Cavaillé-Coll on February 4, 1854, in the second chapel of Sainte-Trinité Church.⁸ On December 19, 1859, Franck became titular organist of the new Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte-Clotilde Church, located in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. In 1862 when his melody Souvenance [Remembrance] was published, Franck thanked Pauline Viardot by dedicating it to her.⁹

In 1868 when Franck’s Six Pièces, composed between 1858 and 1862, were published, they were dedicated to his close friends: Alexis Chauvet, Camille Saint-Saëns, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély, François Benoist, and Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. One must remember that Alexis Chauvet had been destined to succeed François Benoist as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. An extremely talented organist, composer, and professor, Chauvet had won first prizes in organ, fugue, and composition at the Paris Conservatory, where he had assisted Ambroise Thomas in teaching his class. His Twenty Pieces for organ, published in 1862 and dedicated to François Benoist, manifest the influence of Bach and the French Classical composers; like Alexandre Boëly’s music, his works are linked to the German and French schools.

Chauvet’s and Franck’s collections greatly assisted the resurrection of the great art of the organ in France.¹⁰ Both of them had performed in Cavaillé-Coll’s workshops and inaugurated his organs, those at Notre-Dame Cathedral on March 6, 1868, and at Sainte-Trinité Church on March 16, 1869, where Chauvet was appointed titular organist on March 24. Thanks to Chauvet’s highly esteemed advice, Cavaillé-Coll’s great organ and choir organ at Sainte-Trinité Church both had thirty-note pedalboards. Nicknamed “little Father Bach,”¹¹ Chauvet’s Fifteen Preparatory Studies to the Works of Bach (1867) had initiated his students to this great master’s polyphony.

The Leipzig Bach Society published the Bach Gesellschaft between 1851 and 1899. Bach’s organ works became available in 1864 to Parisian subscribers such as Alkan, Chauvet, Viardot, and Saint-Saëns. In 1865 E. Repos published Joseph Franck’s editions of twenty-two Bach preludes and fugues. Unfortunately, the Paris Conservatory’s organ students were not able to acquire an excellent pedal technique necessary for performing Bach’s organ works, simply because its 1819 Grenié studio organ only had a twenty-note pedalboard that was “too large and disproportionate.”¹²

In 1853 Pierre Érard constructed concert pianos with a thirty-two-note pedalboard, with a ravalement that began at A, using a system that was coupled to the low notes of the piano. In 1855 both Pauline Viardot’s organ and Érard’s piano-pédalier were promoted at the World’s Fair. On the piano-pédalier, Alkan performed Bach’s virtuosic Toccata in F Major, which highlighted two pedal solos. In this same year Bach’s Fugue in E Minor was a required work for the Paris Conservatory’s organ competition. In 1858 the Niedermeyer School imposed Bach’s Passacaglia at its final organ exam. Cavaillé-Coll had applied a pedalboard to an upright piano¹³ and Franck had purchased a Pleyel vertical pedalboard (N° 25 655),¹⁴ which, “instead of merely coupling the piano keys to the pedals, was completely independent, with its own strings, hammers, and mechanism.”¹⁵ Chauvet had installed one in a painting studio where he taught. At the Collège in Vaugirard, Franck gave his lessons on a piano with a pedalboard in a small room with stained glass windows.¹⁶

In 1870 the conservatory ordered two Cavaillé-Coll organs,¹⁷ one with three sixty-one-note manuals and seventeen stops for the Société des Concerts Hall, contracted on September 26, 1870, and the other one with three fifty-six-note manuals and twenty-six stops, contracted on November 5, 1870, to replace the inadequate Grenié studio organ. Chauvet advised that these organs should possess thirty-note pedalboards. Unfortunately, he died of a lung infection on January 29, 1871, during the Prussian siege of Paris, just one week after the death of Franck’s father in Aix-la-Chapelle and three days after the armistice had been signed. Charles Gounod lamented his death on March 13 in London:

In London, I learned at this very instant through one of my friends of the death of poor Chauvet, organist of the Great Organ of our parish. This is a great loss! There are few Chauvets, unfortunately.¹⁸

Esprit Auber, director of the Paris Conservatory, died on May 5, 1871, during the revolutionary government that had been instituted on March 18. Ambroise Thomas succeeded him, after Gounod had refused to become director of the conservatory. Twenty-three days later, a week of bloody violence ended the Commune. Franck, a “moderate Republican” (Républicain modéré),¹⁹ had remained in Paris during this difficult period. On February 25, 1871, he contributed to the founding of the Société national de musique, which aspired to give birth to new French music.

How did Franck succeed François Benoist? It is well known that Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Théodore Dubois supported his nomination as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. On August 21 Franck had written to Charles Blanc, director of fine arts, to notify him that he could replace François Benoist.²⁰ On October 1, 1871, his friend Pauline Viardot was appointed voice professor at the Paris Conservatory. Charles Blanc and his brother Louis, a socialist and Republican politician, were both friends of Pauline’s husband, Louis Viardot, an eminent art collector. The Viardots and Louis Blanc had just seen each other in London. On November 12, 1871, a decree by the president of the Republic granted Franck the rights to reside in France.²¹ On January 31, 1872, Jules Simon signed a decree for the General Secretary of the State Department of Public Instruction of Worship and the Fine Arts, which stipulated that Franck would be appointed as organ professor there.²² Benoist retired on the next day, February 1. However, Ambroise Thomas only officially appointed Franck to succeed him after he had received on February 17, 1872, the official letter from Charles Blanc indicating César Franck’s appointment as organ professor. Then forty-nine years old, Franck had been nominated for this eminent post in spite of the fact that he had only received a second prize in organ there, unlike his brother Joseph, who had received a first prize in Benoist’s class in 1852.

Two new Cavaillé-Coll organs at the Paris Conservatory

Unfortunately, the violence in the capital had drastically reduced the conservatory’s funds. Constructing two new organs was out of the question. Since the Grenié studio organ was unplayable, the conservatory had asked Cavaillé-Coll to revise it and to construct another one for the conservatory’s Société des Concerts Hall, using elements from Sébastian Érard’s 1830 Château de la Muette organ, which his daughter-in-law, Madame Pierre Érard, had given to the conservatory in 1863. The construction of the seventeen-stop concert hall organ was delayed—it began on August 31, 1871, but was not finished until October 5, 1872.

Cavaillé-Coll encountered some difficulties installing this organ. Constructed in a parallelogram shape of wood covered with painted canvases, the concert hall had an excellent acoustic. However, in 1866 Alexis-Joseph Mazerolle had redecorated it by placing irremovable panels in the Pompeian style of the Second Empire that were eight and a half meters high at the back of the stage. This stage was reserved for the declamation classes, and the only possible place to install the organ without bothering the scene shifters

was behind the decorative panels at the back of the stage, where an insufficient opening was found that would allow it to be seen as a half-length portrait, as in a Guignol theater.²³

According to Jules Lissajous, the organ was placed in a limited space, on the axis with the stage at the height of the first balcony, and the access to its pipework and mechanics was difficult since

the instrument was entirely separated from the Hall by a rotunda that formed the stage and that encircled the amphitheater where a notable part of the Orchestre Société des Concerts was placed; the sound not coming from this side, resounds from the openings on the upper sides of the stage and is lost in the ceilings and in the hallways and, to make these circumstances worse, a ceiling sagged in two [sections] is suspended at a rather short distance in front of the organ and immediately blocks the sound waves that emanate from the expression box.²⁴

A vintage drawing of the console is illustrated in Example 1.²⁵

Due to the unmovable panels, the sound of the organ was insufficient to accompany singers. Cavaillé-Coll was very disappointed, especially since he was then building a monumental sixty-four-stop concert organ for the city of Sheffield in England, installed in 1873. Unfortunately, due to the violent Commune, the French government had to wait until 1878 to finance the construction of the organ for the concert hall of the Trocadéro festival hall. In the meantime, Cavaillé-Coll observed that

the delay justified by the extent of the work on the grand orgue nevertheless would not have resulted in any loss to the administration, since in this manner, the organ class was able to use the former studio organ until the installation of the grand orgue on which the students may continue to work during the repairs of the studio organ.²⁶

Example 2 of the organ room located just behind the stage of the concert hall illustrates this situation, “Salle d’Orgue.”

After his appointment to the conservatory in 1872, Franck taught on the concert hall organ from February to June and began teaching on the studio organ in October, since it was reconstructed beginning February 23 with reinstallation completed on October 7 in the organ room,27 a small eighteenth-century Rococo-style theater where Benoist had taught. Its pipes were placed in an expressive box to protect them from accumulating dust often found in theaters. It had new mechanical-action keyboards, but its former windchests and nine and a half of its sixteen stops, excluding free reeds, had been retained:

Grand-Orgue (enclosed, 54 notes)

8′ Flûte

8′ Dessus de Flûte Harmonique (30 notes)

8′ Bourdon

4′ Dessus de Prestant (30 notes)

4′ Flûte

8′ Trompette

Récit (enclosed, 54 notes)

8′ Principal

8′ Flûte Traversière

8′ Voix Céleste

4′ Flûte Octaviante

8′ Trompette

8′ Basson and Hautbois

Pédale (enclosed, 30 notes)

16′ Soubasse

8′ Flûte

4′ Flûte

8′ Basson

Pédales de combinaison

Tirasse Grand-Orgue

Tirasse Récit

Copula Récit sur Grand-Orgue

Expression

This “wretched cuckoo of an organ”²⁸ was activated by pulling a stop labeled Sonnette (Bell), and one stop remained Tacet. Its expression was activated by a hitch-down pedal with two notches located on the lower right side of the console as shown in the console layout diagram.²⁹

Each of these organs was equipped with a thirty-note pedalboard. On December 29, 1872, Franck had performed Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor on the new concert hall organ for the Société des Concerts. He had already performed “Adagio” and “Finale” from Hummel’s Fantaisie in E-flat Major on the piano in this hall on March 24, 1839. Performing at the organ this time, he was hidden from the auditors. Alexandre Cellier wrote about this concert hall organ in 1927:

In the hall of the former Conservatory, it’s the poor old instrument with 16 stops placed too high and muffled by an imposturous décor, which must struggle against 70 to 80 musicians. If the disproportion is less grand elsewhere, it does not place the organ in such a position of inferiority with the orchestra.³⁰

Unfortunately, both organs have been removed and have disappeared.

César Franck’s approach to teaching: the technique should serve artistry and musicality

Franck, “a model functionary” (fonctionnaire modèle),³¹ punctually³² taught organ at the Paris Conservatory on the rue Bergère for six hours each week, during two hour-long sessions on three days.³³ These collective lessons with male and female students mirrored the ones he had given in his home in 1838, which enabled students to listen to each other and to their professor. As in the past under François Benoist, his students took two semester exams, at the end of January and June, during which they accompanied a plainchant in four parts, improvised a four-part fugue and a free piece in sonata form—both based on themes chosen by the examiners—and played “a classic piece” of their choice by memory. In 1852 this memorized piece was a fugue; in 1867 it became a Bach fugue; in 1872 a Classical-era piece.³⁴

Franck’s duty was to prepare his students to pass their exams. Prior to these exams, Franck received a report that indicated each student’s name, age, year of study, and previous awards in the class, on which he briefly evaluated, in a blank space that measured one and a half by four and a half inches, the student’s progress and indicated the piece he or she would play during the exam, in order to prepare the scores for the jury members. If they approved a student’s progress, they could award either a second or first accessit (certificates of merit). After each year’s final exam, a competition was held for advanced students, who could obtain either a second or first prize. Although these exams and competitions were closed to the public, their results could have a meaningful impact on the future career of each student.

While much has been said about Franck’s students who won first or second prizes, little is known about the rest of his class. Following is a list of students who enrolled in his class, their dates of participation, the period they were enrolled, and their awards:

Franck’s enrolled students at the Paris Conservatory³⁵

Abbreviations: 1A (first accessit), 2A (second accessit), 1P (first prize), 2P (second prize)

Students who began with Benoist and continued with Franck:

Georges Deslandres (1849–1875), 1868: 1A/1868, remained until 1872

Paul Rougnon (1846–1934), 1868–1872

Paul Wachs (1851–1915), 1869: 2P/1870, 1P/1872

Bazile Benoît (1847–after 1900), 1868: 2A/1872, remained until 1873

Samuel Rousseau (1853–1904), 1871: 2A/1872, 1A/1875, 2P/1876, 1P/1877

Francis Thomé (1850–1909), 1871–1873

Students who studied entirely with Franck:

Jean Tolbecque (1857–1890), November 21, 1872: 1A/1873

Joseph Humblot (born in 1845), 1872: 1A/1873, 2P/1874

Marie-Antoinette [nicknamed Thérèse] Gaillard (1850–after 1900), November 9, 1872–June 7, 1873

Adèle Billault (1848–after 1900), December 20, 1872–June 11, 1875

Amédée Dutacq (1848–1929), January 1874–October 12, 1874

Vincent d’Indy (1851–1931), studied privately with Franck beginning October 13, 1872, and was an auditor in his class before officially enrolling January 14, 1874: 2A/1874, 1A/1875

Léon-Gustave-Joseph Karren (1854–1920), February 1875–1876

Georges Verschneider (1854–1895), 1873: 2A/1874, 1A/1875, remained until 1879

Marie Renaud [Madame Maury] (1852–1928), January 1874: 2A/1875, 1A/1876, remained until June 1877

Louise Genty (born in 1850), January 1875: 2A/1876

Camille Benoît, 1875–1876

Marie-Anne Papot (1855–1896), January 1876: 2A/1876, 1A/1878, 2P/1879, remained until December 1880

Clément Jules Broutin (1851–1900), October 1877–June 1878

Georges Hüe (1858–1948), December 1878–June 1879

Henri Dallier (1849–1934), November 1876: 1P/1878

Georges Marty (born in 1860), December 1878–June 1879

Auguste Chapuis (1858–1933), December 1878: 1A/1879, 2A/1880, 1P/1881

Jean Louis Lapuchin (1850–1895?), December 1878–January 1879

Théophile Sourilas (1850–1907), January 1880: 1A/1880, remained until July 1881

Gabriel Pierné (1863–1937), December 1880: 2P/1881, 1P/1882

Louis Ganne (1862–1923), December 1880: 1A/1882

Paul Jeannin (1858–1887), auditor/1880, December 1881: 1A/1882

Lucien Grandjany (1862–1891), December 1881: 2P/1882, 1P/1883

Henri Charles Kaiser (1861–1920?), December 1881: 2A/1882, 2P/1883, 1P/1884

Frédéric Duplessis (born in 1858), December 1881

Marcel Rouher (1857–1940), November 1882–1885

Léonie Guintrange [Madame E. Rouher] (1858–1900), December 1883–January 1885

Louis Landry (born in 1867), November 1882: 1A/1884, remained until June 1886

Carlos Mesquita (born in 1864), December 1883: 2A/1884, 1A/1885, remained until January 1886

François Pinot (1865–1891), November 1884: 1P/1885

Aimé Féry (born in 1862), December 1885–June 1887

Émile Fournier (1864–1897), October 4, 1885–June 1886

Louis Frémaux (born in 1867), December 1885

Dynam-Victor Fumet (1867–1949), December 1885

Georges Aubry (1868–1939), December 1885: 2A/1888, remained until July 1889

Henri Letocart (1866–1945), December 1885: 2A/1887, remained until June 1890

Alfred Georges Bachelet (1864–1944), December 1885–1887–1888

Louis d’Arnal de Serres (1864–1942), October 1885–1888

Albert Pillard (1867–1943), December 1886–June 1888

Édouard Bopp (born in 1866, Switzerland), December 1887–January 1888

Jean-Joseph Jemain (1864–1954), January 1885: 2A/1886, 1A/1887

Adolphe Marty (1865–1942), December 1886: 1P/1886

Hedwige Chrétien [Madame P. Gennaro] (1859–1944), December 1886–January 1887

Georges Bondon (1867–after 1900), December 1885: 2P/1887, 1P/1889

Cesar[ino] Galeotti (Italy 1872–Paris 1929), December 1885: 1P/1887

Joséphine Boulay (1869–1925), December 1887: 1P/1888

Marie Prestat (1862–1933), December 1887: 2A/1888, 1A/1889, 1P/1890

Jean-Ferdinand Schneider (1864–1934), December 1887–June 1889

Bruno Maurel (1867–after 1900), December 1887–January 1889

Albert Mahaut (1867–1943), December 1888: 1P/1889

Students who began with Franck and continued with Widor:

Achille Runner (1870–1938?), December 1888: 2P/1893, remained until June 1895

Paul Ternisien (born in 1870), December 1888–June 1892

Georges Guiraud (1868–1928), December 1889–June 1891

André-Paul Burgat (1865–1900), December 1889–June 1891

Jules Bouval (1867–1914), December 1889: 2A/1891, remained until June 1894

Henri Büsser (1872–1974), December 1889–January 1893

Henri Libert (1869–1937), December 1889: 2A/1892, 1P/1894

Charles Tournemire (1870–1939), December 1889: 1A/1889, 1P/1891

[Louis Vierne (1870–1937), auditor 1889, enrolled on October 4, 1890, or January 16, 1891: 2A/1891, 2P/1892, 1P/1894]36

In 1872 the six students enrolled in his class had studied with François Benoist. For the next thirteen years his class fluctuated from two to eight students. Just six years after he began to teach organ, he applied to teach composition instead of organ and had hoped to succeed François Bazin, who died on July 2, 1878. However, Jules Massenet was appointed as Bazin’s successor and Franck continued to teach organ. Franck was naturalized as a French citizen on March 10, 1873, yet his teaching would cross the fraternal bridge linking French and German music.³⁷ In the autumn of 1885, his class had grown from four to twelve students and leveled off to about ten pupils per year. Franck’s initial salary of 1,500 francs rose to 2,400 francs.³⁸ This increase was partially due to his successful organ recital³⁹ on October 1, 1878, at the monumental 5,000-seat Trocadéro festival hall during the World’s Fair, which had reaffirmed his reputation as “an artist at the forefront of organ teachers in France.”⁴⁰ Foreign organists entered his class: Carlos Mesquita of Brazil, Édouard Bopp of Switzerland, and Cesarino Galeotti of Italy, his favorite and youngest student, who won his first prize in organ at the age of sixteen.

Seven of Franck’s students—Paul Wachs, François Pinot, Émile Fournier, Georges Guiraud, Henri Letocart, and Henri Büsser—previously received a complete musical training in the Niedermeyer School of Classical and Religious Music, a boarding school located at 10, rue Neuve-Fontaine-Saint-Georges (today rue Fromentin). Founded in 1853 it thoroughly trained church musicians, offering courses in solfège, piano, organ, plainchant, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, accompaniment, music history, and vocal ensemble. These students had acquired the eight volumes of the Peters Edition of J. S. Bach’s organ works and played them daily,⁴¹ as well as great classical works by Palestrina, Handel, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, etc.⁴² When Clément Loret, a former Lemmens student in Brussels, began to teach there in 1858, his Cours d’orgue had appeared in the school’s journal, La Maîtrise. It included exercises in manual substitutions and glissandi as well as the use of both toes and heels in order to play legato. According to Lemmens, “a good method for pedaling was as necessary as good fingering to properly play the organ.”⁴³ Loret’s method explained how an organ functioned and taught students to transpose, accompany plainchants, and improvise.

Students could practice on small Cavaillé-Coll organs, fifteen pianos, and even a piano with a pedalboard, as well as in Cavaillé-Coll’s workshops, where they occasionally gave concerts.⁴⁴ At the end of the 1880s, Loret’s student Aloÿs Kunc taught students in Toulouse who then entered Franck’s class—Dynam-Victor Fumet, Henri Büsser, Georges Guiraud, and Jules Bouval. In 1889 when Büsser went to meet Franck at Sainte-Clotilde Church to show him his recent exams in harmony, fugue, and composition at the Niedermeyer School, Franck told him,

Young man, you seem to be very talented, come tomorrow morning to my class at the Paris Conservatory and, without doubt, I will make something of you.⁴⁵

The next day, Büsser played a Mendelssohn sonata, a Bach fugue, and then improvised on a free theme that Franck had given him. Franck then told him, “I think that you may enter my class as a student, after the examination in January.”⁴⁶

Four of Franck’s students—Adolphe Marty, Albert Mahaut, Joséphine Boulay, and Louis Vierne—had studied at the National Institute for Blind Youth⁴⁷ with Louis-Bon Lebel (1831–1888), who used Lemmens’ École d’Orgue to teach pedal technique. Around 1875 Franck became the inspector of musical studies there and the president of the final exams at the end of each year.⁴⁸ Students worked rigorously and practiced four or five hours each day on their two Cavaillé-Coll studio organs, one in the boys’ quarters and the other in the girls’ quarters. In 1883 Cavaillé-Coll built a three-manual, thirty-six-stop organ for their chapel, decorated by the painter Henri Lehmann, a friend of Franz Liszt. The chapel also served as a concert hall when movable panels enlarged the room. For this organ’s inauguration on March 17, 1883, Franck had composed his Psalm CL for choir, organ, and orchestra, for which Louis Vierne played timpani.

Some of Franck’s students came from musical families. Paul Wachs’s father was a composer and choirmaster at Saint-Merri. Georges Deslandres’s father Laurent and his brother Adolphe were musicians at the Sainte-Marie-des-Batignolles Church; his brother Jules-Laurent was a bass player, and his sister Clémence was a singer. Samuel Rousseau’s father was a harmonium manufacturer in Paris. Georges Verschneider came from a family of three generations of organ builders active from 1760 until 1900 in Moselle. Hedwige Chrétien was the granddaughter of the violinist J. Ternisien. Jean Tolbecque came from a family of French-Belgian musicians. His father Auguste was a cellist and composer who taught at the Marseille Conservatory from 1865 until 1871; a friend of Camille Saint-Saëns and Ambroise Thomas, he had acquired an organ for his early instrument collection installed in the Fort-Foucault in Niort in 1875.⁴⁹ Henri Letocart’s father Joseph was a music professor.

Among Franck’s sixty-three enrolled students, seventeen were awarded first prizes; two received second prizes; ten, first accessits; four, second accessits, and twenty-nine received no awards. Those who received no award had not studied harmony or counterpoint and could not improvise (Léon Karren, Clément Broutin, Jean Lapuchin, Émile Fournier, Amédée Dutacq, Georges Deslandres, Louis Landry, and Henri Letocart). These students could escape to a small room situated underneath the organ to help Jean Lescot, the conservatory’s janitor, pump the organ’s wind bellows.⁵⁰ Some became ill (Albert Pillard, Jean-Ferdinand Schneider, Georges Aubry, Georges Verscheider, Louis de Serres, and Léonie Guintrange). Others were talented, conscientious, and had studied accompaniment or composition, but were too busy to practice (Alfred Bachelet, Francis Thomé, Aimé Féry, Louis Frémaux, Paul Ternisien, Louis Ganne, and Paul Jeannin). Some students specialized in other instruments, such as the pianist Bazille Benoît and the cellist Jean Tolbecque. Joseph Humblot was his only organ student who improvised very well but he had difficulty performing. Other excellent students with high-level musical intelligence worked hard, interpreted well, but had difficulty improvising, such as Louise Genty, Marie Renaud, Théophile Sourilas, Georges Verschneider, and Vincent d’Indy. Both Vincent d’Indy and Marie Renaud had received only a first accessit. D’Indy was very bitter about this and spoke rather unkindly about his fellow students in his Journal.⁵¹ He left Franck’s organ class but continued to study composition privately with him. Marie Renaud, one of Franck’s ten female students, was the first woman to win a first prize in counterpoint and fugue (1876) at the conservatory. Unfortunately, she could not compete for the Grand Prix de Rome because it was forbidden for women to do so until 1903. She was also the first woman to be a member of the Société nationale de musique.

Those who had successfully won a first prize in organ had also studied harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and composition in order to become complete musicians. All of Franck’s students who had studied at the National Institute for Blind Youth had won a first prize in organ: Adolphe Marty, Albert Mahaut, and Joséphine Boulay quickly received it due to their excellent training. In 1888 Boulay was Franck’s first female student to win a first prize in Franck’s organ class. Marie Prestat was the first woman to obtain five first prizes at the conservatory (in harmony, accompaniment, composition, fugue and counterpoint, and organ). Henri Dallier also earned his first prize very quickly, because he had studied at the Reims cathedral choir school and had been choir organist there.

To prepare his students for their exams, Franck taught them to accompany plainchants given in whole notes with very free developments in four-part florid counterpoint, with the cantus firmus placed in the bass and three voices above it.⁵² The suppleness of the chants, such as Stabat Mater, Dies irae, or Jesu Redemptor, gave birth to beautiful improvisations and compositions in all forms. Franck desired that the embellishments of these admirable melodies be musically expressive, in order to bring them to life.⁵³ When the organ room was occupied by exams, he taught the accompaniment of plainchant on a piano in another room.

With indulgence, patience, severity, and austerity, Franck taught improvisation five out of the six hours of his organ class each week,⁵⁴ according to the conservatory’s imposed strict regulations. To improvise a four-voice fugue d’école, students had to listen carefully to Franck’s severe advice in order to strictly follow a set architectural plan and construct fugues solidly and harmoniously with an absolute pureness of style. After exposing the theme in four voices, they chose a countersubject with entries in the outer voices and developed a stretto toward the end. The free improvisations used a one-theme exposition, which after a bridge subtly introduced a new element during the transition to the dominant, which could later serve during the development, before the recapitulation in the tonic.

As in François Benoist’s class, the themes provided during Franck’s class were sometimes taken from Haydn’s and Mozart’s symphonies, but during their exams students improvised on popular tunes from operettas. However, from January 1879 to June 1887, fugue subjects and modern themes were composed specially for the exams⁵⁵ by Auguste Bazille, Jules Cohen, Léo Delibes, Théodore Dubois, Henri Fissot, Alexandre Guilmant, and Ambroise Thomas.⁵⁶

Franck encouraged his students to improvise with “melodic invention, harmonic discoveries, subtle modulations, and elegant figurations:⁵⁷

He did not stop the student who was developing a Gregorian theme or another free or imposed one, a fugue, a sonata movement with florid counterpoint, but gave several interjections, launched with a vibrant loud bursting voice, sometimes with a tremendous crescendo to impose the order of a development, a tonality, a modulation, to prevent the apprentice organist from getting lost in the contrapuntal plan, to proclaim criticism or praise: “Modulate! . . . Some flats!!! Some sharps!!! E in the bass, in the tonal key. . . . Something else! I don’t love that! I love that!”⁵⁸

According to Maurice Emmanuel, he gave his students practical principles with severity and sweetness and encouraged them to listen to the beautiful Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte-Clotilde:

One should see one of Franck’s lessons in this small half-obscured theater, where the master’s beautiful voice resonated like a deep bell, at one moment detailing the exercise underway, and at another moment expressing, with general ideas, the preference of the musician. Severe when supervising the construction of a fugue, he wanted this rhetoric to be as worthwhile as possible. “First search for a beautiful countersubject,” he said. . . . And the student, invited to discover one on his own, was not always able to invent one. Then Franck took his place on the oak bench and demonstrated one in grand style—“And here’s a second one! And a third one! . . . And yet another one!” The students were confounded. . . . The same tactic for the “divertissements.” Those which the young beginning “fugue improvisers” came up with were not always to his liking: therefore, his hands ran to the keyboards, substituting an example for the precept. This pedagogical method was perhaps insufficient for many students, who had only applied, desired, or were waiting for precise recipes. This eloquent persuasive model was addressed to the worthy disciple who could understand it and who was capable of becoming inspired by it.

It is especially while exercising free improvisation that Franck applied this method. It was as good as any other. He created in front of his students a “verse” or a more developed piece in order to enable them to succeed in the double exam on the day of competition. He gave his students practical precepts and was very strict concerning the choice and order of modulations. He had magistral ideas concerning them. But all things considered, “Listen to me,” he cried; or even, unsatisfied with the resources that the small old organ in the class offered him, he said to his students: “Come to Sainte-Clotilde on Sunday. I will demonstrate this to you.”⁵⁹

Gabriel Pierné, Louis de Serres, and Louis Vierne observed that “no form of teaching could be livelier: his playing was magnificent, seductive, leading the student to his utmost potential. . . .” [nulle forme d’enseignement ne pouvait être plus vivante: c’était un jeu magnifique, séduisant, entraînant à l’extrême. . . .].⁶⁰ Franck did not need to resort to words to express his thoughts, which he could more fully express by music.⁶¹ Therefore, he played various solutions to show them how to develop a good fugue.⁶² According to Augusta Holmès, who studied composition with him beginning in 1875, “He never substituted his own manner of thinking for that of his students. After having opened the way, he let them entirely follow their own initiative.”⁶³ Maurice Emmanuel emphasized, “As necessary as it may be, the form is not sufficient. It only constitutes a framework. And the most beautiful technique in the world can remain a dead letter if it is not used to serve an idea.”⁶⁴

Franck’s three primary maxims were:

Don’t try to do a great deal, but rather seek to do well no matter if only a little can be produced. Bring me the results of many trials that you can honestly say represent the very best you can do. Don’t think that you will learn from my corrections of faults of which you are aware unless you have strained every effort yourself to amend them.⁶⁵

Louis de Serres, whose expressive delicateness Franck particularly appreciated, confirmed that, “No one better than he knew how to make his students understand a strictly severe organ style . . . at the same time deeply felt and expressive.”⁶⁶

Franck did not use a particular method or follow any strict rules, but orally gave each student personal advice. According to Albert Mahaut, “He spoke little, in small phrases, but we sensed the deepness of his soul, his greatness, his energy, at the same his penetrating sweetness.”⁶⁷ His innate, perceptive intuition enabled him to understand each student’s personality, temperament, capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Whatever their level, Franck deeply loved teaching and instilled in each student his impassioned ardor and love of musical beauty. As Charles Tournemire expressed, “Never did one leave this seraphic musician demoralized; but certain observations, said in a few words, generally gently and penetrating, striking and exact, enlightened the soul and warmed the heart.”⁶⁸ “César Franck had a great influence on my artistic philosophy. I owe him the calm and the courage that strengthens artists. . . . If he lived for transcendent art, he knew how to help those who came to him.”⁶⁹

Extremely generous, Franck did not accept any payment from talented students who needed money more than himself, such as Henri Büsser, whom Franck asked to substitute for him at Sainte-Clotilde.⁷⁰ His class was like a family reunion. Léonie Guintrange met her husband, Marcel Rouher, there. His lack of pride and his joy of accomplishing his everyday tasks with “constant optimism emanated from his perfect kindness, his incapacity to experience any resentment or jealousy; his ongoing cheerful nature”⁷¹ was a consolation and encouragement to all his students, who deeply respected him.

According to Joël-Marie Fauquet and Rollin Smith, the following musicians were auditors in his organ class:⁷²

Ca. 1870 (?): Camille Rage

Ca. 1872: Maurice Cohen-Lânariou (from Romania)

Ca. 1875: Georges Bizet⁷³ (1839–1875), Henri Kunkelmann (1855–1922), Albert Renaud (1855–1924)

1876: Julien Tiersot (1857–1936)

1879: Ernest Chausson (1855–1899)

1880: Paul Vidal (1863-1931)

1880–1881: Herman Bemberg (1859–1931, from France and Argentina), [first name?] Bessand, Claude Debussy (1862–1918), Fernand Leborne (1862–1929), Jules-Gaston Melodia

1880–1885: John Hinton⁷⁴ (1849–1922, from England) [organ], Paul Dukas (1865–1935)

1888: Anne-Berthe Merklin (Mme. Lambert des Cilleuls, daughter of Joseph Merklin) (1866–1918) [piano and organ], Raymond Huntington Woodman (1861–1943, his only student from the United States, a private organ student for three months)

1889: Mlle. De Mailli [harmonium and organ], Louis Vierne

It is likely that some of his other private organ students attended his organ class, such as Charles-Auguste Collin⁷⁵ (1865–1938) and Saint-René Taillandier (who died in 1931). Many of his composition and piano students during these years could have attended his courses:

1872: Alexis de Castillon (1838–1873), Albert Cahen d’Anvers (1846–1903)

1872–1875: Henri Duparc (1848–1933), one of his most talented students [ca. 1863–ca. 1875], Urban Le Verrier (1811–1877)

1873: Arthur Coquard (1846–1910), Mlle. de Jouvencel [piano]

Ca. 1875: Edmond Diet (1854–1924), Marguerite Habert [piano], Augusta Holmès (1847–1903), Henri Kunkelmann (1855–1922), Charles Langrand (1852–1942) [piano and composition?]

1876: Mel-Bonis, Mélanie Bonis (Mme. Albert Domanche) (1858–1937) [piano]

1878: Mme Charles Poisson [piano]

Ca. 1880: Raymond Bonheur (1861–1939), Paul Braud [piano], Laure Fleury [piano, year uncertain], Joséphine Haincelin [piano], Marguérite Hamman [piano], Léon Husson, Mlle Javal [piano], Henry Lerolle (1848–1929), ? Fernand Fouant de La Tombelle (1854–1928), Léo Luguet (1864–1935), H. Kervel [organ and piano?], Georges Rosenlecker, Gustave Sandré (1843–1916) [composition, piano, and organ?, year uncertain], Alice Sauvrezis (1866–1946) [piano, year uncertain], Gaston de Vallin [piano?], Paul de Wailly (1856–1933)

1881–1887: Pierre de Bréville (1861–1949)

Ca. 1885: Charles Bordes (1863–1909), Cécile Boutet de Monvel (1864–1940) [piano], Paul Carré de Malberg [composition?], Paul Dukas (1865–1935), Henri Expert (1863–1952), Marie Fabre, Mme Soullière [piano and composition], Henry Huvey (died 1944) [organ], Sylvio Lazzari (1857–1944) [born in Austria], Mme Édouard Lefébure [piano], Charles Pierné [harmonium], Henri Quittard (1864–1919), Guy Ropartz (1864–1955), Georges Saint-René Taillandier (1852–1942) [year uncertain], Théophile Ysaye (1865–1918) [piano, brother of Eugène]

1887: Stéphane Gaurion [a private organ student?]

1887–1890: Erik Åkerberg (1860–1938) [Swedish], Jules Écorcheville (1872–1915)

1888: Mlle Olympe Rollet [piano]

1889: Charlotte Danner [piano], Mme Saint-Louis de Gonzague [piano], the Argentinian Alberto Williams (1862–1952)⁷⁶

Ca. 1889–1890: Guillaume Lekeu (1870–1894)

Ca. 1890: Clotilde Bréal (1870–1947) [one of Franck’s favorite piano and organ students, to whom he dedicated his Choral in E Major, in the copy that belonged to her second husband, Alfred Cortot], Frank [Franz] Godebski (1866–1948).

Franck understood each student’s capacities and needs, which often led to liberal conclusions that were quite different from the formalism of other professors at the Paris Conservatory. In 1880 and 1881, when Claude Debussy attended his class as an auditor for six months to obtain his advice in composition, Franck had confided to him, “The fifths, there are some nice ones. . . . At the Conservatory one does not allow that. . . . But I myself, I love it well!”⁷⁷

As Erik Kocevar indicated, Gustave Derepas understood Franck’s teaching when he confirmed that instead of imposing his own musical ideas on his students, he let each follow their own paths:

Radically setting aside a personal and intolerant biased opinion, the master penetrated with a rare sagacity his students’ thoughts. . . . How remarkable! Musicians trained in his school of thought all possessed a solid science that can be qualified as profound; but each maintained his own personality. The master was so respectful of the inspiration of others!⁷⁸

To thank him, Franck’s students wholeheartedly supported him. They deeply respected their master, referred to him as a Pater Seraphicus, and developed a doctrine known as “Franckism.”⁷⁹ Many of them contributed to the fact he received the Légion d’honneur on August 6, 1885, during the distribution of prizes at the conservatory, in gratitude for his fifteen years of service there.⁸⁰ In spite of his Germanic origins, many of them revered him as a true renewer of French music, labelled as ars gallica, according to the motto of the Société nationale, which Franck presided over in 1886. Just to give one example, in 1879 Camille Benoît encouraged him by publishing several articles on his works in the Gazette musicale and the Guide musical. His students organized and paid for a Festival Franck, which was given at the Cirque d’Hiver on January 30, 1888.

Franck was not responsible for his students’ complaints to Ambroise Thomas that he had not been appointed as a composition professor at the Paris Conservatory. Unfortunately, this created considerable hostility.⁸¹ Also, Vincent d’Indy had interpreted Franck’s noble character as a sort of religious absolutism that “obeyed the three theological virtues known as Faith, Hope, and Charity,”⁸² to which Franck’s son Georges was totally opposed. According to Maurice Emmanuel, “Franck was never pious, and he was not a practicing Christian.”⁸³ One of his favorite books, which had inspired his Beatitudes,⁸⁴ was The Life of Jesus (published in 1863)⁸⁵ by Ernest Renan, a close friend of Pauline Viardot. César Franck had meditated and was “guided”⁸⁶ by Christ’s Beatitudes since 1845; he had completely set them to music thirty years later. However, although art goes hand in hand with religion, due to its essentially noble character, Franck’s teaching was not religious in nature, but it was deeply spiritual. He simply desired to mold his students’ capacities to express themselves musically, with noble grace, in order to enable them to become genuine artists.

To be continued.

Notes

1. Léon Vallas, La véritable histoire de César Franck, 1822-1890 (Paris, Flammarion, 1955), page 10, and Joël-Marie Fauquet, César Franck (Paris, Arthème Fayard, 1999), page 42.

2. Fauquet, page 54.

3. Vallas, page 19.

4. Fauquet, page 120.

5. Fauquet, page 464. This college was located on the rue de Vaugirard. According to Rollin Smith, Playing the Organ Works of César Franck (Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1997), page 25, in 1860, Hippolyte Loret built an organ for their chapel. Franck taught beside another Belgian, Father Louis Lambillotte, who participated in the movement to restore Gregorian chant. In 1856, Adrien Le Clère published César Franck’s Organ Accompaniments of Gregorian Chant, restored by Father Lambillotte.

6. M. Louseau, “Souvenirs de Collège,” Le Gaulois, November 23, 1903, published in Franck Besingrand, César Franck, Entre raison et passion (Brussels, Peter Lang, 2002), pages 165, 167. Carolyn Shuster Fournier translated the original French citations in this article.

7. Cécile and Emmanuel Cavaillé-Coll, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (Paris, Fischbacher, 1929), page 92.

8. This chapel was located at 12, rue de Clichy. Lefébure-Wély and Pierre Érard were witnesses at this ceremony. In addition to the other addresses mentioned in this article, Franck also lived at 6, rue de Trévise beginning in the spring of 1841 and at 43, rue Lafitte in the autumn of 1842. In 1865, his family moved to 95, boulevard Saint-Michel.

9. Composed in 1846, it was originally intended for his future fiancée, Félicité Desmousseaux. Fauquet, page 54.

10. Félix Raugel, “La Musique religieuse française de l’époque révolutionnaire à la mort de César Franck,” La Revue Musicale, No. 222, 1953–1954, page 119.

11. Henri Maréchal, Souvenirs d’un musicien (Paris, Hachette, 1907), page 171.

12. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, “Description de l’orgue actuel du Conservatoire impérial de musique,” March 12, 1864, A. N. [Archives Nationales de France], F21 1037.

13. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, “Letter to Eugène Gautier,” January 29, 1858, published in Fenner Douglass, Cavaillé-Coll and the Musicians (Raleigh, North Carolina, Sunbury Press, 1980), vol. II, page 997.

14. Vallas, page 142.

15. Smith, page 16.

16. M. Louseau/Besingrand, page 165.

17. See A. Cavaillé-Coll, Traité propose à Monsieur le Ministre des Cultes de l’Instruction publique, des Cultes et des beaux arts, November 5, 1870, A.N. AJ37 82, 4, and Jesse Eschbach, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, A Compendium of Known Stoplists, vol. I (Paderborn: Verlag Peter Ewers, 2003), pages 726–727.

18. Charles Gounod, “Autograph letter to Monsieur le Curé,” London, March 13, 1871, private collection; published in Shuster Fournier, Un siècle de vie musicale à l’église de la Sainte-Trinité à Paris (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2014), page 42.

19. Fauquet, page 406.

20. Fauquet, page 466.

21. Fauquet, pages 471 and 834.

22. See Jules Simon, “Arrêté pour le Secrétaire Général du département de l’Instruction publique des Cultes et des Beaux Arts,” Janvier 31, 1872, A. N., AJ37, 69, 2, n° 7, and Charles Blanc, “Le Directeur des Beaux-Arts, Membre de l’Institut, Lettre au Monsieur le Directeur [du Conservatoire National de Musique & de Déclamation],” Février 17, 1872, A. N., AJ37, 69, 2, n° 4.

23. Albert Dupaigne, Le Grand Orgue de la nouvelle salle de concert de Sheffield (Paris, Plon et Cie., 1873), page 48.

24. Jules Lissajous, “Rapport sur l’orgue établi par Mr. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll dans la grande salle du Conservatoire de Musique de Paris,” A. N., AJ37 82, 4d.

25. A. Cavaillé-Coll, “Mémoire général des travaux du grand orgue de la salle des Concerts du Conservatoire de Musique de Paris,” January 12, 1872, A. N., AJ37 82, 4d, stoplist also published in Eschbach, page 338. According to Gilbert Huybens, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, Opus List, page 22, this organ was delivered on January 29, 1872.

26. A. Cavaillé-Coll, “Letter to Monsieur Ambroise Thomas, Director of the Paris Conservatory,” December 5, 1871, A. N., AJ37 82, 4.

27. A. Cavaillé-Coll, “Mémoire general des travaux de reconstruction et de perfectionnement effectués à l’orgue d’Étude du Conservatoire de Musique à Paris,” October 24, 1872, A. N., AJ37 82, 4d, included in Carolyn Shuster’s doctoral thesis, “Les Orgues Cavaillé-Coll au salon, au théâtre et au Concert,” delivered in 1991 at the François-Rabelais University in Tours.

28. Louis Vierne, “Mes Souvenirs,” In Memoriam Louis Vierne (Paris, Les Amis de l’Orgue, 1939), page 21.

29. Jules Lissajous, “Rapport sur l’orgue d’étude du conservatoire national de musique, reconstruit et perfectionné par Mr. A. Cavaillé-Coll,” October 25, 1872, A. N., AJ37 82, 4d. The stops on the Grand Orgue keyboard, Eschbach, page 349, indicate that the 8′ Flûte and 4′ Prestant have 30 notes without specifying that they are the upper 30 notes; Rollin Smith, page 31, and Orpha Ochse cite Louis Vierne, who mentioned, in Mes Souvenirs, an 8′ Dessus de Montre without indicating the Dessus of Flûte Harmonique and Prestant stops.

30. Alexandre Cellier, L’Orgue Moderne (Paris, Delagrave, 1927), page 106.

31. Vallas, page 316.

32. Albert Mahaut, “Souvenirs personnels sur César Franck,” Musique et musiciens (Paris, l’Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, 1923), page 586.

33. Louis Vierne, in his Journal II (Cahiers et Mémoires de L’Orgue, No. 135 bis, 1970), page 162, mentions that his courses took place on Mondays and Thursdays at 2:00 p.m. and on Saturdays at 11:00 a.m., but in Mes Souvenirs II (Cahiers et Mémoires de L’Orgue, No. 134 bis, III, 1970, page 22), he indicates that they took place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.

34. A. N., AJ37 251.

35. Prepared with: A. N., AJ37 283; Fauquet, pages 960–964.

36. Vierne, in Mes Souvenirs, page 24, mentions that he was admitted as an organ student at the Paris Conservatory on October 4, 1890. According to Widor’s report, January 24, 1891, A. N., AJ37 292, 54, he enrolled on January 16, 1891.

37. See Fauquet, pages 408 and 471.

38. Vallas, page 174.

39. See Eugène Gigout, “Concerts et Soirées,” Le Ménestrel (XLIV), N° 45, October 6, 1878, page 363.

40. See Smith, page 37, who quotes “Nouvelles diverses,” Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, November 10, 1878, page 367.

41. Henri Letocart, “Quelques Souvenirs,” L’Orgue, No. 36, December 1938, pages 2–7; 37, March 1939, pages 4–6.

42. Orpha Ochse, Organists and Organ Playing in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1994), page 209, quoting Gabriel Fauré, “Souvenirs,” La Revue musicale, No. 3, October 1922, pages 3–9.

43. Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, École d’Orgue basée sur le Plain-Chant Romain (B. Schott’s Söhne, 1862), page 2.

44. Marie-Louise Boëllmann-Gigout, “L’École Niedermeyer,” in Histoire de la musique 2, under the direction of Roland-Manuel, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (Paris, Gallimard, 1963), page 854.

45. Henri Büsser, “La classe d’orgue de César Franck en 1889–1990,” L’Orgue, No. 102, 1962, page 33.

46. Ibid.

47. It was founded by Valentin Haüy in 1794 and was located on the boulevard des Invalides. Louis Briaille (1809–1852), organist and professor at this institute, had developed the musical writing for the blind in 1829. Its organ class had been founded in 1826.

48. Had Franck recalled that forty years previously his first music teacher, Dieudonné Duguet, had become blind in 1835, the year Franck had left the Liège Conservatory?

49. Alban Framboisier, “The compositions of Auguste Tolbecque (1830–1919),” text of the CD jacket in Homage to Auguste Tolbecque (Netherlands, Passacaille, 2019), pages 19–22.

50. See Fauquet, page 475.

51. Vincent d’Indy, Ma Vie (Paris, Séguier, 2001).

52. Odile Jutten, “L’Évolution de l’enseignement de l’improvisation à l’orgue au Conservatoire,” in Anne Bongrain and Alain Poirier, eds., Le Conservatoire de Paris: Deux cents ans de pédagogie, 1795–1995 (Paris: Buchet/Chastel, 1999), page 83.

53. Vallas, pages 327–328.

54. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 23.

55. Jutten, page 85.

56. Théodore Dubois, themes used during organ exams at the Paris Conservatory from January 1879 to June 1887, A. N., AJ37 237, 3.

57. Smith, page 41.

58. Vallas, page 319.

59. Maurice Emmanuel, César Franck (Paris, Henri Laurens, 1930), pages 106–108.

60. Vallas, page 319.

61. Emmanuel, page 106.

62. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 45.

63. J. Bernac, “Interview with Mlle. Augusta Holmès,” The Strand Musical Magazine, 1897, Vol. 5, page 136, quoted in Florence Launay, Les Compositrices en France au XIXe siècle (Paris, Arthème Fayard, 2006), page 56.

64. Emmanuel, page 113.

65. John W. Hinton, César Franck: Some Personal Reminiscences (London, William Reeves, n.d.), page 43, quoted in Smith, page 43.
66. Louis de Serres, “Quelques souvenirs sur le père Franck, mon maître,” L’Art musical, November 29, 1935, page 68, quoted in J.-M. Fauquet, page 477.

67. Vallas, page 329.

68. Tournemire, page 70.

69. L’Orgue, Nos. 321–324, 2018—I–IV, LXX and 8.

70. Büsser, page 34.

71. Emmanuel, pages 15–16.

72. Fauquet, pages 960–964, and Rollin Smith, “César Franck’s Metronome Marks: from Paris to Brooklin,” The American Organist, September 2003, page 58.

73. This laureate of a first prize in organ in 1875 came to listen to Franck’s class and distributed tickets to his students who were lucky enough to attend the premiere of Carmen on March 3 at the Opéra-Comique.

74. According to Ochse, page 159, John Hinton studied privately with Franck in 1865 and 1867 and was an auditor in his organ class in 1873.
75. See Charles Augustin Collin, “César Franck et la musique bretonne,” Le Nouvelliste de Bretagne, August 1912.

76. The author thanks Vera Wolkowicz who kindly communicated this to her.

77. Vallas, page 322.

78. Gustave Derepas, César Franck/Étude sur sa vie, son enseignement, son œuvre (Paris, Fischbacher, 1897), page 27; quoted in Erik Kocevar, “Ses élèves et son enseignement,” in César Franck (1822–1890), Revue Européenne d’Études Musicales, No. 1, 1991, Paris, Éditions Le Léopard d’Or, pages 41–42.

79. Vallas, page 341.

80. Vallas, page 234.

81. Vallas, page 323.

82. Fauquet, page 22.

83. Emmanuel, page 12.

84. Vallas, page 306. In Louis Vierne’s “Choral,” number 16 of his 24 Pièces en style libre, opus 31, the second half of the choral theme is very similar to the theme of the baritone solo (the voice of Christ) in Franck’s third Beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn.”

85. Fauquet, page 315.

86. Emmanuel, page 12.

Editor’s note: an earlier version of this article, “César Francks orgelklas aan het Parijse conservatorium, zijn gepassioneerde zoektocht naar artistieke schoonheid,” appeared in Orgelkunst, issue 179, pages 168–191, 2022.