The organ works of Eugène Gigout
Gerard Brooks
In 1923, just two years before his death, Eugène Gigout celebrated sixty years as organist at the church of Saint-Augustin in Paris. As part of the celebrations, his closest friend Gabriel Fauré (who had appointed him as Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire in 1911) delivered an effusive and public hommage testifying to Gigout’s many musical achievements, a tribute that was echoed by other former pupils and friends:
“Eugène Gigout has gone through the 60 years of his career without the strength of his talent, his creativity or the greatness of his soul ever waning. All who have known him would agree with me that the charm of his character, his seriousness, the goodness of his heart and his unbelievable modesty have remained the same. I personally affirm that intellectually and morally he is today the same hard-working, exemplary, refined school friend of yesterday: Gigout has never changed.”
Although remembered today primarily as an organist and composer, a study of Gigout’s life and work shows him to have been a single-minded and dedicated teacher who believed passionately in serving the musical needs of the liturgy through the use of modal harmony, and especially through the systematic study of improvisation. In this he was following in the footsteps of César Franck, who also laid great emphasis on the study of improvisation. In the preface to his 1920 edition of Lemmens’ École d’Orgue, Gigout wrote: “It is indispensable for a finished organist to be able to improvise as it is constantly necessary in the Catholic Church to do so.”
