Gaston Litaize
Encyclopedia
Gaston Gilbert Litaize was a French
organist
and composer
. Considered one of the 20th century masters of the French organ, he toured, recorded, worked at churches, and taught students in and around Paris
. Blind from infancy, he studied and taught for most of his life at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles
(National Institute for the Blind).
, Vosges
, in northeast France
. An illness caused him to lose his sight just after birth. He entered the Institute for the Blind at a young age, studying with Charles Magin, who encouraged him to move to Paris and study with Magin and Adolphe Marty at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, which he did from 1926 to 1931. Concurrently, he entered the Paris Conservatoire in October 1927, studying with Marcel Dupré
and Henri Büsser
, as well as privately with Louis Vierne
. Over the course of six years, he won first prizes in organ, improvisation, fugue, and composition, as well as the Prix Rossini for his cantata Fra Angelico. In 1938 he finished second to Henri Dutilleux
in the Prix de Rome
, said to be the first time that a blind person was accepted in the competition; subsequently he asked Dutilleux many times to compose for the organ, but nothing came of it.
He began working as organist at Saint-Cloud
in 1934, and after leaving the Paris Conservatoire in 1939 he returned to the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles to teach harmony. In 1944 he began a thirty-year directorship of religious radio programs, where he oversaw five weekly broadcasts. He took up a position in 1946 at St François-Xavier, Paris, where he remained the organist until his death. In 1975 he retired from the radio and began teaching organ at St Maur-des-Fossés Conservatoire, where he "gained numerous disciples." He died in 1991 in Bruyères
, Vosges.
As a performer, Litaize toured France, western Europe
, the USA, and Canada
. His first American tour was in the autumn of 1957. His recording of the Messe pour les paroisses by François Couperin
on the organ at Saint-Merri
earned highly positive reviews, called "admirably recorded" in The Musical Times
and a "fine, sensitive performance" in Music and Letters. Unusually, he elected not to use notes inégales
in the performance, although he was very interested in researching "old" music. His improvisations were called "shattering displays" and compared favorably to Dupré
, Demessieux
, Cochereau
, and Heiller
.
Litaize was highly influential on generations of French organists. He inspired Olivier Latry
to choose his career:
wrote that "extreme modernity was the key-note". Archibald Farmer wrote that the Préludes liturgiques were "clever, interesting, often good, and always modishly French."
Litaize was involved with experimental music; soon after the inception of musique concrète
he was asked to write a piece for African xylophone, four bells, three zanzas, and two whirligigs, which Pierre Schaeffer
fragmented and reformed into Étude aux tourniquets in 1948-9.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
. Considered one of the 20th century masters of the French organ, he toured, recorded, worked at churches, and taught students in and around Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Blind from infancy, he studied and taught for most of his life at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles
Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles
Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, , in Paris, was the first special school for blind students in the world, and served as a model for many subsequent schools for blind students.-History:The INJA was created in 1784 by Valentin Haüy.It was not until the late 18th century that society began to...
(National Institute for the Blind).
Life
Litaize was born in Ménil-sur-BelvitteMénil-sur-Belvitte
Ménil-sur-Belvitte is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.Inhabitants are called Ménilois.-Geography:The village is equidistant between Rambervillers and Baccarat, approximately from each...
, Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
, in northeast France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. An illness caused him to lose his sight just after birth. He entered the Institute for the Blind at a young age, studying with Charles Magin, who encouraged him to move to Paris and study with Magin and Adolphe Marty at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, which he did from 1926 to 1931. Concurrently, he entered the Paris Conservatoire in October 1927, studying with Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
and Henri Büsser
Henri Büsser
Henri Büsser was a French classical composer, organist, and conductor.- Biography :Paul-Henri Büsser was born in Toulouse, of partly Teutonic ancestry. He entered the Conservatoire in Paris in 1889; there he studied organ with César Franck and composition with Ernest Guiraud...
, as well as privately with Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
. Over the course of six years, he won first prizes in organ, improvisation, fugue, and composition, as well as the Prix Rossini for his cantata Fra Angelico. In 1938 he finished second to Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...
in the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
, said to be the first time that a blind person was accepted in the competition; subsequently he asked Dutilleux many times to compose for the organ, but nothing came of it.
He began working as organist at Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.Like other communes of the Hauts-de-Seine such as Marnes-la-Coquette, Neuilly-sur-Seine or Vaucresson, Saint-Cloud is one of the wealthiest cities in France, ranked 22nd out of the 36500 in...
in 1934, and after leaving the Paris Conservatoire in 1939 he returned to the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles to teach harmony. In 1944 he began a thirty-year directorship of religious radio programs, where he oversaw five weekly broadcasts. He took up a position in 1946 at St François-Xavier, Paris, where he remained the organist until his death. In 1975 he retired from the radio and began teaching organ at St Maur-des-Fossés Conservatoire, where he "gained numerous disciples." He died in 1991 in Bruyères
Bruyères
Bruyères is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.The town built up around a castle built on a hill in the locality in the 6th century. It was the birthplace of Jean Lurçat, in 1892.-History:...
, Vosges.
As a performer, Litaize toured France, western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, the USA, and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. His first American tour was in the autumn of 1957. His recording of the Messe pour les paroisses by François Couperin
François Couperin
François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...
on the organ at Saint-Merri
Saint-Merri
The Church of Saint-Merri is a small church in Paris, located on the busy street Rue Saint Martin, on the Right Bank....
earned highly positive reviews, called "admirably recorded" in The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
and a "fine, sensitive performance" in Music and Letters. Unusually, he elected not to use notes inégales
Notes inégales
In music, notes inégales refers to a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short...
in the performance, although he was very interested in researching "old" music. His improvisations were called "shattering displays" and compared favorably to Dupré
Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
, Demessieux
Jeanne Demessieux
Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Demessieux , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:...
, Cochereau
Pierre Cochereau
Pierre Eugène Charles Cochereau , was a French organist, improviser, composer, and pedagogue.- Biography :Pierre Cochereau was born on July 9, 1924 in Saint-Mandé, near Paris. In 1929, after a few months of violin instruction, he began to take piano lessons with Marius-François Gaillard...
, and Heiller
Anton Heiller
Anton Heiller was an Austrian organist, harpsichordist, composer, conductor.-Biography:Heiller was born at Vienna. After undergoing his initial church music training with Wilhelm Mück — organist at the Stephansdom Anton Heiller (September 15, 1923 — March 25, 1979) was an Austrian organist,...
.
Litaize was highly influential on generations of French organists. He inspired Olivier Latry
Olivier Latry
Olivier Latry is a French organist, improviser and Professor of Organ in the Conservatoire de Paris. Latry was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France...
to choose his career:
At 16 I won piano first prize ... and I thought I might continue piano studies at the Paris Conservatoire. ... However, I decided to play the organ, choosing Gaston Litaize at the CNR de St-Maur-des-Fossés as my teacher as I had heard him give a very exciting recital at the Cathedral of Boulogne-sur-Mer. It was this that confirmed my desire to play the organ.
Works
Norbert Dufourcq summarized Litaize's compositional style: "Litaize inclines ... to restlessness and gloom, but his idiom is virile and glowing. He is a fine melodist and skilful polyphonist." A review of Litaize's Douze pièces in The Musical Times was generally negative, however, finding the music dry and calling Litaize a "virtuoso writing for virtuosos". Of the Prière, Henry WillisHenry Willis
Henry Willis was a British organ player and builder, who is regarded as the foremost organ builder of the Victorian era.-Early Life and work:...
wrote that "extreme modernity was the key-note". Archibald Farmer wrote that the Préludes liturgiques were "clever, interesting, often good, and always modishly French."
Litaize was involved with experimental music; soon after the inception of musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
he was asked to write a piece for African xylophone, four bells, three zanzas, and two whirligigs, which Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...
fragmented and reformed into Étude aux tourniquets in 1948-9.
Organ
- Douze pièces (1931–1937)
- Grand-Messe pour tous les temps (1948)
- Noël basque (1949)
- Cinq pièces liturgiques (1951)
- Passacaille sur le nom de Flor Peeters (1953)
- Vingt-quatre préludes liturgiques for organ without pedal (1953–1955)
- Fugue sur l'Introït Da pacem (1954)
- Thème varié sur le nom de Victor Gonzales (1957)
- Messe basse pour tous les temps (1959)
- Messe de la toussaint (1964)
- Prélude et danse fuguée (1964)
- Epiphanie (1984)
- Reges Tharsis - Méditation sur l'offertoire de l'Epiphanie (1984)
- Deux trios (1984):
- Divertissement à trois
- Pièce en trio
- Arches - Fantaisie (1987)
- Suite en forme de messe (1988)
- Offerte vobis pacem (1991)
- Diapason - Fantaisie sur le nom de Jehan Alain
Organ with instrument(s)
- Passacaille for organ and orchestra (1947)
- Cortège for brass and organ (1951)
- Pentecôte - Triptyque for two organs (1984):
- Vigile
- Nocturne
- Séquence
- Diptyque for oboe and organ:
- Andantino
- Scherzo
- Triptyque for French horn and organ
- Sonate à deux for organ, four hands
Other works
- Récitatif et thème varié for clarinet and piano (1947)
- Missa solemnior for mixed vocal quartet and organ (1954)
- Missa Virgo gloriosa for soprano, tenor, bass, and organ (1959)
- Magnificat for mixed vocal sextet and organ (1967)
Recordings
- Prélude et danse fuguée (5.4 mb, mp3) by Raul Prieto
- Danse fuguée (2.1 mb, wma) by Krzysztof Czerwinski