Musicians - Jeanne Demessieux

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	Musicians - Jeanne Demessieux

Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Demessieux (February 13, 1921–November 11, 1968), was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.

Biography

Jeanne Demessieux was born in Montpellier, in southern France. She was the second child of Marie-Madeleine Mézy and Étienne Demessieux. After taking private piano lessons with her elder sister, Yolande Demessieux, Jeanne entered the Montpellier Conservatory in 1928. Four years later, in 1932, she obtained first prizes in solfège and piano. The same year, the Demessieux family relocated to Paris, in order to allow Jeanne to pursue further musical studies. In 1933, Jeanne Demessieux was enrolled as student at the Paris Conservatory, studying piano with Simon Riera and Magda Tagliaferro, harmony with Jean Gallon, counterpoint and fugue with Noël Gallon, and composition with Henri Büsser. She was also appointed titular organist at St. Esprit in Paris in 1933, a post she held for 29 years. Between 1936 and 1939, she studied organ privately with Marcel Dupré, whose organ class at the Conservatory she joined in 1939. After receiving a first prize in organ performance and improvisation in 1941, Jeanne Demessieux studied five more years with Dupré in Meudon, before she played her début recital at Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1946. This was the beginning of her career as an international recitalist. She played more than 700 concerts in Europe and the United States. Jeanne Demessieux had a prodigious memory: she had memorized more than 2,500 works, including the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Marcel Dupré.

Jeanne Demessieux made numerous recordings, including the complete organ works of César Franck, which was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque in 1960.

In 1962, Jeanne Demessieux was appointed titular organist at La Madeleine in Paris. Additionally, she was professor of organ at Nancy (1950-52), and the Royal Conservatory in Bruxelles, Belgium (1952-68). Jeanne Demessieux, who always had a fragile health, was obliget to limit her performance activities during the mid-1960's. In 1967, she signed a contract with the Decca label for a complete recording of Olivier Messiaen's organ works. Due to her untimely death in 1968, the project was never realized.

After several months of illness, Jeanne Demessieux died on November 11, 1968, in her Parisian apartment. She left a large catalog of compositions. Aside from her eight organ compositions, she wrote pieces for piano, numerous songs and choir works, including an oratorio, "Chanson de Roland," and orchestra works.

Her organ works are "Nativité," opus 4 (1943), "Six Études," opus 5 (1944), which contain some of the most difficult passages in the entire organ repertoire, "Sept Meditations sur le Saint-Esprit," opua 6 (1944-45), "Triptyque," opus 7 (1947), "Twelve Choral-Preludes on Gregorian Chant Themes," opus 8 (1948), "Poème," opus 9 for organ and orchestra (1949), "Te Deum," opus 11 (1958), "Rèpons pour les Temps de Pâques" (1962-63), and "Prélude & Fugue en Ut," opus 13 (1965). Only one third of her entire catalog, which consists of more than 30 compositions, has been published until today.

The Dutch label "Festivo" has rereleased several recordings with Jeanne Demessieux, including her recording of César Franck's complete organ works from 1958, on five CD's.

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