Auguste Bazille

Auguste Bazille

Auguste-Ernest Bazille (born August 27, 1828 in Paris , † April 18, 1891 in Bois-Colombes ) was a French organist and composer .

Life

Bazille studied at the Conservatoire de Paris , where he received first prizes in the subjects of solfège (1841), theory of harmony (1845), fugue (1846) and organ (1847). In 1848 he won the first Second Grand Prix de Rome .

At the same time he was engaged at the Opéra-Comique , first as an accompanist and later as director for singing. In 1853 he became organist at the large organ of the Sainte-Élisabeth church built by the Suret company . In 1878, Pierre Laboureau followed him on the spot.

In addition to his work at the Opéra-Comique and as an organist, Bazille taught piano accompaniment at the Conservatoire de Paris. One of his students here was Claude Debussy .

A respected organist, Bazille traveled all over France and inaugurated numerous important organs, including the Suret organ of the Saint-Médard church in Epinay-sur-Seine (1854), the organ in Nancy Cathedral restored by Cavaillé-Coll in 1861 and that of Louis Debierre built the organ in the Abbey of Saint-Sauveur in Montivilliers (1884).

Major public events in Paris were the inauguration of the Barker organ at Saint-Eustache with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens , César Franck and Cavallo (1862) and the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Sulpice with Alexandre Guilmant , Camille Saint-Saëns , César Franck and Georg Schmitt , as well as the inauguration of the Merklin- Schütze organ from Saint-Maclou in Rouen together with Aimable Dupré , Camille Saint-Saëns, Charles Renaud de Vilbac and Aloys Klein (1866).

As a composer, Bazille was best known for piano arrangements of contemporary operas and operettas. Together with Louis Clapisson , François-Auguste Gevaert and Ferdinand Poise , he composed the one-act operetta La Poularde de Caux , which was performed at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal .

literature

• Joël-Marie Fauquet (ed.): Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle . Fayard, Paris 2003.
• Christophe d'Alessandro: Orgues, Musiques et Musiciens à Sainte-Élisabeth, la Flûte Harmonique. Revue de l'Association Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, n ° 91, 2010.