Édouard Commette


Édouard Commette was an organist from Lyon in France of international fame who served the Archdiocese of Lyon and was organist at Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière for over 50 years.
Place Édouard Commette at the foot of the hill on which the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière is built is named in his honour. A student of Charles-Marie Widor and Victor Neuville, his recordings were known worldwide, and he was also known as a composer of accessible and tuneful organ music in his own right.

Biography

Born in Lyon in the center of the silk manufacturing district where his father was an exporter, Edouard studied piano at the lycée of Bourg-en-Bresse, after which he returned to Lyon and turned his attention to organ and harmony. A pupil of Charles Marie Widor, in 1900 he made his debut as organist in Lyon at the Church of the Good Shepherd. Four years later he spent six months at the Church of Saint Polycarpe, which owns one of the loveliest organs in the city.
He took up his post at Lyon Cathedral in 1904 and was a professor at the Conservatoire de Lyon. Among his students were Pierre-Octave Ferroud and Adrien Rougier. Called "the best French organist" by the well-known music critic Émile Vuillermoz, Commette earned similar tributes from his students and listeners from all parts of the world and is responsible for some of the earliest organ recordings. "These – 78s, of course – were intended for a local market: their world-wide success amazed the modest M. Commette."
The organ of Lyon Cathedral was built by :fr:Daublaine Callinet and was installed in 1841 at the end of the apse and had 15 stops. It was rebuilt in 1875 by :de:Joseph Merklin|Merklin-Schütze and given 30 stops, three keyboards of 54 notes and pedals for 27.

Critical reception

Gramophone once opined "Edouard Commette is a notable performer of the old school. He does not keep as steady a beat as I would like in the B minor and D minor Fugues, and not everyone will approve of his tendency to slow up slightly in order to point a fugal entry......I find M. Commette's rubato convincing enough in the non-fugal movements, and he gives a noble account of the B minor and Dorian preludes."

Compositions

Léon Boëllmann : Menuet et Toccata de la Suite gothique
Eugène Gigout : Toccata
Gabriel Pierné : Prélude
Felix Mendelssohn : Allegro Molto de la 6° Sonate
J. S. Bach : Pièces BWV 543, 625, 614
Louis Vierne : Carillon de Longpont
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault : Caprice sur les grands jeux
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque EMI; Columbia, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1938 CD-EMI partiel

– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia-FCX 498, 1955
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia-FCX 497, 1955
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia, 1956
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia, 1957
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia, 1958
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia, 1961
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia, 1962
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia-FCX 496, 1955
– Transcriptions de E. Commette.
– Lyon St-Jean
– Disque Columbia-ESBF 176, 1957