Entrée (Heures Mystiques, No. 5)

Léon Boëllmann (1862 – 1897) was a French composer of Alsatian origin, known for a small number of compositions for organ. His best-known composition is Suite gothique (1895), still very much a staple of the organ repertoire. Born in Ensisheim, Haut-Rhin, the son of a pharmacist. In 1871, at the age of nine, he entered the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse (L'École Niedermeyer) in Paris, where he studied with its director, Gustave Lefèvre, and with Eugène Gigout. He there won first prizes in piano, organ, counterpoint, fugue, plainsong, and composition. After graduation in 1881, he was hired as "'organiste de choeur'" at the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris, and six years later he became cantor and "organiste titulaire," a position he held until his early death, probably from tuberculosis. As a favored student of Gigout, Boëllmann moved in the best circles of the French musical world, and as a pleasing personality, he made friends of many artists and was able to give concerts both in Paris and the provinces. Boëllmann became known as "a dedicated teacher, trenchant critic, gifted composer and successful performer...who coaxed pleasing sounds out of recalcitrant instruments." Boëllmann died in 1897, aged only 35. During the sixteen years of his professional life, Boëllmann composed about 160 pieces in all genres. Faithful to the style of Franck and an admirer of Saint-Saëns, he yet exhibits a turn-of-the-century Post-romantic esthetic, which especially in his organ works. He also wrote motets and art songs, works for piano, a symphony, works for cello and orchestra and for organ and orchestra, a cello sonata, and other chamber works.

I will put individual notes in the "first comment" of each piece.