Léon Boellmann

Léon Boëllmann (1862–1897) entered the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse (L'École Niedermeyer) in Paris, where he studied with its director, Gustave Lefèvre, and with Eugène Gigout. There, Boëllmann won first prizes in piano, organ, counterpoint, fugue, plainsong, and composition. After his graduation in 1881, he was hired as "organiste de choeur" at the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, and six years later he became cantor and organiste titulaire, a position he held until his early death, probably from tuberculosis. As a favoured student of Gigout, Boëllmann moved in the best circles of the French musical world, and as a pleasing personality, he made friends of many artists and was able to give concerts both in Paris and the provinces. After 1885, he taught in Gigout's school of organ playing and improvisation. Boëllmann also wrote musical criticism for L'Art musical under the pseudonym "le Révérend Père Léon" and "un Garçon of the Salle Pleyel". Boëllmann died in 1897, aged only 35. During the sixteen years of his professional life, he composed about 160 pieces in all genres. His best-known composition is Suite gothique (1895), now a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its concluding Toccata, a piece "of moderate difficulty but brilliant effect", with a dramatic minor theme and a rhythmic emphasis that made it popular even in Boëllmann's day.