Widor: A Life Beyond the Toccata

Widor: A Life beyond the Toccata brings to light the life and work of one of France's most distinguished but overlooked musicians, Charles-Marie Widor. Considered to be among the greatest organists of his time, Widor was a prolific composer in nearly every genre, professor of organ and composition at the Paris Conservatory, academician and administrator at the Institute of France, as well as a journalist, conductor, music editor, scholar, correspondent, and inspired visionary.

Though known mainly as an organist and organ composer, particularly of the famous Toccata, Widor was in fact a man of deep culture who counted among his friends the elite of society and luminaries in nearly every field. He taught an imposing number of students from France and abroad, including the Bach scholar and renowned humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer. This volume, meticulously researched, includes translated press reviews of his work, and correspondence with contemporaries and friends, making it a treasure for historians of the organ and nineteenth-century French music.

An appendix to the text constitutes the most complete listing of Widor's oeuvre ever compiled; each work is dated as accurately as possible and includes the publisher, plate number, dedicatee, and relevant commentary. Another appendix lists Widor's published writings. Widor: A Life beyond the Toccatauthe most complete biography of the composer and organist in any languageuilluminates in exceptional detail one of France's great yet neglected artists of the Belle +poque.

John R. Near is William Martin and Mina Merrill Prindle Professor of Fine Arts and college organist at Principia College.