Paul-Gilbert Langevin
Paul-Gilbert Langevin was a French musicologist, who wrote books on Anton Bruckner, Franz Schubert and 19th-century classical music.
Paul-Gilbert Langevin was the son of French physicist Paul Langevin and Eliane Montel, a private teacher at the Sorbonne science department. He started his scientific education at the Sorbonne and then completed it at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, obtaining a degree in physical chemistry under the supervision of professor René Freymann.
From a young age, Langevin had a deep interest in classical music, listening to Anton Bruckner's symphonies on radio recordings during his youth and meeting conductor Roberto Benzi. Having completed his scientific degrees, he decided to write a thesis under the supervision of Daniel Charles at the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes about 19th century Austrian music, focusing on composer Anton Bruckner and the so-called "ethnoromantic" period.
He became a physics teacher at the Sorbonne science department, and then, at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, which was created in the 1960s. During this time, he met musicologists Harry Halbreich, Gustave Kars, Jacques Feschotte, Pierre Vidal, Marc Vignal and Jean-Luc Caron. Langevin went on to create the Anton Bruckner French society, wrote books on 19th-century symphonic music, edited in La Revue Musicale and L'Age d'Homme, and became a music critic in Le Monde de la musique, edited by Anne Rey.
From the 1950s, Langevin focused on classical music, symphonic music, and writing. Specifically, he wrote articles, monographs and books about Anton Bruckner, Franz Schubert, Guillaume Lekeu, Albéric Magnard, Joseph-Guy Ropartz and Charles Koechlin. He was also interested in works by Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Franz Schmidt, Ferruccio Busoni, Leoš Janáček and Carl Nielsen.
He died on 4 July 1986.
