Charles-Marie-Jean-Albert Widor (21 February 1844 – 12 March 1937) was a French organist, composer, teacher, conductor and critic of the late Romantic era. As a composer he is best known for his ten symphonies for solo organ, a genre he invented. He was helped in this by the innovative organs built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. The final Toccata of his Organ Symphony No. 5 is frequently played as recessional music at weddings and other celebrations.
He was the longest-serving organist of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, a post he held for 63 years (January 1870 – 31 December 1933). He also was organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1890 to 1896 in succession to César Franck and then he became professor of composition at the same institution, following Théodore Dubois.
Widor was a prolific composer, writing music for organ, piano, voice and ensembles. Apart from his ten organ symphonies, he also wrote three symphonies for orchestra and organ, nearly a hundred songs for piano and voice, four operas and a ballet.
Life and career
Early years
Widor c. 1870
Widor was born in Lyon on 21 February 1844. His parents were François Charles Widor and his wife François Elisabeth née Peiron. François, a successful organ builder and a well-known organist, took charge of his son's musical education. The boy showed considerable musical ability and at the age of eleven became the organist at the lycée in Lyon.
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, reviver of the art of organ building in France, was a friend of the Widor family; on his recommendation the young Widor went to Brussels in 1863, studying with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens for organ technique and with François-Joseph Fétis, director of the Brussels Conservatoire, for composition. Lemmens had an unbroken musical line of descent across four generations from J. S. Bach; Lemmens's biographer François Sabatier comments, "The idea that Lemmens inherited the 'Holy tradition' of Bach ... and passed it on directly to his successors (Guilmant, Widor, Loret, and then Dupré) should be regarded with caution", but from Lemmens, Widor learned traditional German interpretations of Bach to which he remained loyal for the rest of his life.
After four years of study in Brussels, Widor moved to Paris where he resided for the rest of his life. In 1869, at the age of 24, he was appointed assistant to Camille Saint-Saëns, organist at the Église de la Madeleine. The organist of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, Alfred Lefébure-Wély, died on the last day of 1869. In January 1870, with the combined lobbying of Cavaillé-Coll and Charles Gounod, Widor was appointed as organist of Saint-Sulpice for a provisional term of one year. Despite the ostensibly provisional nature of his appointment, Widor remained at Saint-Sulpice for nearly 64 years, until the end of 1933.
During the German siege of Paris from September 1870 to January 1871 services continued despite bombardment. Widor was conscripted into the French army but was released each Sunday to play – in military uniform – at Saint-Sulpice. The church continued to survive, with minor damage, during the turmoil of the Paris Commune in March to May 1871.
In October 1871 Gabriel Fauré was appointed as organiste du choeur – Widor's deputy and choirmaster. During some services, Widor and Fauré improvised simultaneously at the church's two organs, trying to catch each other out with sudden changes of key. In January 1874 Fauré left to become deputy to Saint-Saëns at the Madeleine (like Widor before him). He was succeeded at Saint-Sulpice by his friend and former student André Messager, who continued the friendly improvising contests with Widor. Improvisation of a more serious character added to Widor's reputation. According to the newspaper Excelsior, his improvisations were "inspired by the evocation of the holy mysteries, starting from an angelic sweetness, to end with a dazzling sound, immense as the sacred precinct with which they filled the vaults".
The dominant musical influence of the later part of the nineteenth century was Richard Wagner, and like many other French composers Widor made the journey to the Bayreuth Festival, where he attended the first complete performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen. He regarded Die Meistersinger as Wagner's masterpiece, and Wagner's influence is heard in Widor's Organ Symphonies Numbers One and Six, in particular. The musical analyst Ateş Orga cites Wagner and Franz Liszt as Widor's musical heroes. Widor's respect for Wagner's orchestration was such that he included numerous references to and examples from Wagner operas in his textbook, Technique de l'orchestre moderne (Technique of the Modern Orchestra).
Many French composers supplemented their income by writing music criticism, and from about 1880 Widor did so under the pen-name Auteles in the daily L'Estafette. During the 1880s he took to conducting. In emulation of the British choral tradition he co-founded the Societé Concordia, with whom he directed works for choir and orchestra including The Seasons, the St Matthew Passion and others by Saint-Saëns, Liszt, Schumann and Mendelssohn. His friend and admirer Isidor Philipp wrote:
This supervirtuoso of the organ, this inspired improviser, was, like Debussy and Ravel, a mediocre, uncertain, timid orchestra conductor, yet he liked to conduct, as if he, of all people, was in search of applause.
Paris Conservatoire
In 1890, after the death of Franck, Widor succeeded him as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire. At first he found it difficult to introduce his own methods, which aroused much envy and obstruction, as some colleagues dismissed him as an outsider. He thought Franck had lacked musical rigour, but taking care not to alienate the students, who had revered Franck, he told them that although his predecessor had been a brilliant improviser, the focus now must be on developing a technique that was "scientific and rational, not empirical". According to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians he overcame his early problems at the conservatoire by force of character and successfully introduced a rigorous technical discipline in addition to a supposedly authentic style of performing Bach. One of his students later recalled:
Apart from actual inaccuracy, the fault Widor could least endure was lack of rhythm. In the class his continual comments were: He plays like a glue-pot! Lift the hands from the keys. Observe the rests, the commas, and the "breath-marks". Phrase more! Articulate more! He used to say: "Many musicians and artists think the organ is a dull and unattractive instrument; but it is the organists themselves who are to blame for this by their lifeless, unrhythmic performances".
In 1896 Théodore Dubois was promoted from professor of composition to be principal of the conservatoire. This incensed Jules Massenet, the other professor of composition, who resigned from the faculty. Widor was appointed to succeed Dubois, and Fauré was appointed to the professorship vacated by Massenet. The two new composition professors found themselves to be rivals. Grove's Dictionary describes Fauré as better suited than Widor to the contemporary cultural climate of Symbolist art and poetry, attracting many important students. As against that, Widor's expertise in counterpoint, fugue and orchestration, as well as his deep knowledge of the Austro-German tradition, proved of great value to his students such as Arthur Honegger, Edgard Varèse, Darius Milhaud and Marcel Dupré. Among his other students were Gabriel Dupont, Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne. Albert Schweitzer also studied with Widor, mainly from 1899; master and pupil later collaborated on an annotated edition of J. S. Bach's organ works, published in 1912–1914.
Widor played in Britain and countries in Continental Europe, and he participated in the inaugural concerts of many of Cavaillé-Coll's greatest instruments including that in Notre-Dame de Paris. At the Trocadéro in Paris he gave a regular series of organ concerts with orchestra, in collaboration with the conductor Édouard Colonne.
In 1892 Widor was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, and reached the rank of a Grand-Officier in 1933. He was elected to the Institut de France in 1910, after being narrowly beaten at his first attempt, the previous year, by the rival candidacy of his former deputy, Fauré. He became Secrétaire perpetuel (permanent secretary) of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1914 by the unanimous vote of his colleagues.
Later years
Widor in 1926
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the French government left Paris for Bordeaux. Widor, who said he trembled for the Louvre, was tasked with arranging the removal of hundreds of the country's finest art treasures to a safer location in Toulouse. After the war the government sent him to Spain to promote cultural exchange between the two nations, a mission resulting in the construction of the arts centre Casa de Velázquez (which was bombed to destruction during the Spanish Civil War but was revived and continues to the present day). In 1921 Widor played a leading role in the foundation of the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau. He was the director until 1934, when he was succeeded by Ravel. His close friend Philipp gave piano lessons there, and Nadia Boulanger taught an entire generation of new composers.
At the age of 76, Widor, described by the musicologist Nigel Simeone as hitherto "a raffish bachelor with a well-honed eye for attractive women", married Mathilde de Montesquiou-Fézensac on 26 April 1920 at Charchigné. The 36-year-old Mathilde was a member of one of the oldest and most prominent families of Europe. The marriage brought him great joy and companionship. He seldom smiled for photographs but does so in those with his wife.
On 31 December 1933, at the age of 89, Widor retired from his position at Saint-Sulpice, succeeded by his former pupil Dupré. In April 1934, at the Saint-Sulpice organ, he played his Pièce mystique, composed when he was 90. Two years later he suffered a stroke that paralysed the right side of his body, although he remained mentally alert to the last. He died at his home in Paris on 12 March 1937 at the age of 93. He had declined a state funeral and his remains were interred in the crypt of Saint-Sulpice four days later.
The musicologist Roland de Candé writes that Widor exercised a profound influence on the French school of organ playing. In the view of Grove's Dictionary, the ten organ symphonies are the core of Widor's large and varied oeuvre. His colleague Isidore Philipp wrote that Widor invented the genre. By Widor's time the term "symphony", which derives from the Greek syn ('together') and phōnē ('sounding'), was taken to mean an extended work for orchestra, generally in four movements and following sonata form. Widor, taking advantage of the wide range of musical timbres offered by Cavaillé-Coll organs, composed solo symphonies on a comparable scale. From his experience in composing for orchestra he was fully aware of the essential differences between organ and orchestra, and cautioned against viewing the former as a substitute for the latter. Widor's biographer Andrew Thompson cites Charles Alkan's symphonies for solo piano (1857) and Franck's Grande pièce symphonique (1863) as Widor's starting-point for composing organ symphonies.
In Thompson's view, the first set of Organ Symphonies (Nos. 1–4, 1872), which deploys an eclectic range of styles, seems more like a series of suites than like symphonies. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians describes the four purely as suites. Thompson finds that the second set (Nos. 5–8, 1887) "contrastingly displays Widor's intellectual force and imaginative power [producing] a high level of argumentative cogency and formal unity within astonishingly large-scale structures". The Fifth Symphony is his best-known and its popular concluding toccata is the music by which he is most remembered. The last two Organ Symphonies are based on traditional Gregorian themes, treated cyclically; No. 9 (the Gothique, 1895) is deliberately archaic in style, and No. 10, the Romane (1900), is more impressionistic. An obituarist wrote:
Widor always remained faithful to the classical style of [Bach], yet he imbued it with his own personal touch. Consequently, works such as the Symphonie gothique and the Symphonie romane – to name but two – do not preclude a certain playfulness and refinement; far from detracting from their power and magnificence, these qualities only serve to enhance them.
In a 1998 study of French organ music, Michael Murray writes of the Symphonies from No. 5 onward "their virtuosity is at the same time precise in the manner of Bach, transcendental in the manner of Liszt – sweeping gesture is at one with minute articulation".
Stage works
Scene from La Korrigane (1880), Widor's first public success
Widor wrote theatre scores, described by Thompson as "relatively lightweight": ballet music for La Korrigane (1880) and incidental music for Conte d'avril (1885), which became popular in piano and other arrangements. The former was his first public success. The authors of Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique praised "M. Widor's very successful score" and added:
La Korrigane, in introducing the name of this young composer to the theatre, shows us an original musician, an enemy of banality and convention, looking only to himself for his ideas and his inspiration. His style is clear and precise. His melodic phrase always stands out clearly from an instrumentation illuminated by the moon, in the midst of dolmens and menhirs.
Widor's opera Maître Ambros, presented at the Opéra Comique in 1886 attracted some interest for its Wagnerian echoes and "rousing Meyerbeerian crowd scenes" (Grove), but, according to The Era's Paris correspondent, the romantic element was "one of the most commonplace, colourless and uninteresting to which any unfortunate composer has ever had to tack a score", and the reviewer found Widor's score notably elegant and delicate, but colourless. Grove's Dictionary comments on Widor's "apparent tendency to capitalize on the successes of others" – instancing his opera Les pêcheurs de Saint-Jean (1905) which has marked similarities to d'Indy's L'étranger (1898–1901).
Songs
Widor wished to emulate the musical success of Saint-Saëns and Fauré in smart Parisian salons. The mèlodie (art song) was fashionable, and he composed nearly a hundred – almost as many as Fauré. His song-cycle Soirs d'été (Summer Evenings, 1889) was the first by a French composer since Hector Berlioz's Nuits d'été (Summer Nights, 1841). The words were by Widor's cousin Paul Bourget, who also provided the texts for the composer's second song-cycle, Chansons de mer (Songs of the Sea, 1902). The baritone Michael Bundy describes the cycle as almost symphonic in structure, "balancing ardent yearning, tender pathos and serene relief".
Chamber music
Widor wrote chamber works throughout his career. They include two piano quintets, a piano quartet, a piano trio, two violin sonatas, a cello sonata and Soirs d'Alsace for piano trio, as well as suites and smaller pieces for various instrumental combinations. A commentator wrote in 1989 of Widor's characteristically French melodic elegance in his chamber works: "There is often an appealing delicacy of texture and colour, though a sense of vigour infuses much of the music, and in the passages of power, there emerges a fullness of sonority that is decidedly romantic".
Among his early chamber works, the Piano Trio in B♭ major, Op. 9, was described in 2007 as a charming, lightweight work, with a romantic first movement with a pleasingly elegant secondary theme and a slow movement reminiscent of a Mendelssohn Song Without Words. The Piano Quintet in D minor, Op. 7, although shorter in length, is described as "a bigger work, more concentrated in conception and style, with the piano dominating the bold opening movement". The slow movement is elegant and there are further Mendelssohnian echoes in the scherzo, followed by a finale in which the polyphonic development may reflect Widor's training in the Bach tradition. Grove's Dictionary describes the Piano Quartet in A minor (1891) as "superb", and says that the work gives a rare insight into Widor's private life, inspired by his love affair with Countess Emmanuela Potocka: "its expression of intimate erotic feeling in the slow movement is enhanced by the piano's Lisztian flutterings and tremblings".
The Cello Sonata in A major Op 80 (1907) is a three-movement work on a large scale. Its opening leads to a lively movement in sonata form. A review of a 2003 recording of the piece said "It is full of good ideas and its civilized discourse holds the listener throughout".
List of compositions
Rough dates of composition/publication are in brackets, along with the original publisher, if known.
↑Several sources give Widor's year of birth as 1845, he himself thought it was the correct date, and it is inscribed on his tomb, but his birth certificate survives and shows the earlier year.
↑By some accounts Mathilde would have liked to marry Marcel Proust, but Proust being gay she settled for the undoubtedly heterosexual Widor.
↑Nevertheless, in the preface to later editions of his symphonies, Widor wrote that before Cavaillé-Coll, organs were monochrome in tone, but on the new instruments there was "the possibility of detaining a whole division in an acoustic prison opened or closed at will, the freedom to mix timbres, the means of gradually intensifying or reducing them, the independence of rhythms, sureness of attacks, balance of contrasts – in short, a whole blossoming of wondrous colours, a rich palette of the most diverse tones … of a quality and variety unknown till then. Such is the modern organ, essentially symphonic".
↑Wilson, Charles et al"Symphony", Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press 2026 (subscription required)
↑Kennedy, Joyce, Michael Kennedy and Tim Rutherford-Johnson "symphony", The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Oxford University Press, 2013 (subscription required)
Murray, Michael (1998). French Masters of the Organ: Saint-Saëns, Franck, Widor, Vierne, Dupré, Langlais, Messiaen. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-30-007291-4.
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