Paul Gilson

Biography

Paul Gilson (Brussels, 15 June 1865 – Brussels, 3 April 1942) was a Belgian musician and composer.

Biography

Paul Gilson was born in Brussels. In 1866, his family moved to Ruisbroek in the Belgian province of Brabant. There he studied theory with the organist and choir director Auguste Cantillon, and began writing works for orchestra and choir. His first official training came from 1887 to 1889 under François-Auguste Gevaert in composition and under Charles Duyck in harmony and counterpoint at the Brussels Conservatory, and in 1889, he was awarded the Belgian Prix de Rome for a cantata, Sinaï, which was very well received. As the winner of the prize he was able to spend time in Bayreuth (1892), Paris (1893–4) and Italy (1895).
A large orchestral work, La mer, which was first performed in Brussels on 20 March 1892, established Gilson as a national musical figure and also gave him success abroad, though not in Paris.
In 1899 he became professor of composition at the Brussels Conservatory; he won the same post at Antwerp in 1904 but quit both after becoming inspector of music education in 1909, a post he would keep until 1930. Although he was a very prolific composer, his output decreased after 1905, after which Gilson wrote increasingly about music, in theory, criticism, and composition. One of his pupils was composer and violinist Georgios Poniridis.
In 1925, a group of Gilson's students who called themselves Les Synthétistes (including René Bernier, Francis de Bourguignon, Théo De Joncker, Marcel Poot, Maurice Schoemaker, Jules Strens and Robert Otlet) first formed, declaring allegiance to Gilson's ideas about music. Along with Poot and Schoemaker, he founded La revue belge musicale in 1924; he was the chief editor until it folded in 1939. He also wrote pamphlets for Belgian radio.
Gilson corresponded regularly with Russian composers César Cui and Mitrofan Belyayev. He died in his native city of Brussels.

Honours

1932 : commander in the Order of Leopold.

Music

Gilson was somewhat conservative in his musical outlook. Some of his work is indebted to Wagnerian harmony, and his books on harmony and instrumentation also bear this out.
La Mer, the score which gave him his greatest success, is a set of four impressionistic movements ("symphonic sketches") in sonata form which were originally intended to illustrate verses by a French-speaking poet, Eddy Levis. Generally considered to form a programmatic symphony depicting the sea, Gilson's score (also known as De Zee) predated Claude Debussy's work of the same name by a decade. Despite being finely crafted, his later works such as the oratorio Francesca da Rimini tended to be somewhat conventional, lacking the originality displayed in the orchestration of La Mer. An exception is the brilliant Variations symphoniques (originally scored for brass ensemble), which is also the composer's only major work without literary associations.

For orchestra

1890 Alla Marcia rhapsody for string orchestra
1890 Rhapsodie à la marcia
1892 La Mer 4 Symphonic sketches
Lever de soleil
Chants et danses de matelots
Crépuscule
Tempête
1892–1893 Mélodies écossaises for string orchestra
The Flowers Of The Forest
Sweet May Morning
Jig And Song
1900 Ouverture symphonique Nr. 1
Alvar
1902 Premier Concerto for Alto Saxophone
1902 Deuxième Concerto for Alto Saxophone
1903 Variations symphoniques for large orchestra (adapted from the first version for brass ensemble)
1903 Ouverture symphonique Nr. 2
1904 Ouverture symphonique No. 3
1910 Inaugural Fanfare for the Coronation of Albert I
1929 Parafrazen op vlaamse volksliederen
Sailors Dance

For wind orchestra

1891 Fantaisie canadienne (Published by Breitkopf & Härtel as Fantasie über kanadische Volksweisen in 1898)
1903 Variation symphonique for brass instruments
1892/1925 La Mer 4 Symphonic Sketches for wind orchestra transcribed by Arthur Prevost
Lever de soleil
Chants et danses de matelots
Crépuscule
Tempête
1930 Tornacum
1930 Grande marche du Centenaire
1948 Moeder for speaker and fanfare orchestra
Binche
Brabant – marche militaire
Danse guerrière from the ballet La Captive
Deuxième rhapsodie
Deuxième valse symphonique
Encore un ! allegro
Epithalame
Gavotte Monsignore
Hommage à Weber
Interlude solennel
L'heureux voyage
Le retour au pays : Prière avant le départ
Marche commémorative
Marche cortège
Marche panégyrique
Merxem – Allegro militaire
Montréal – Allegro de concert
Ouverture »Eleusines«
Patrouille albanaise
Poème symphonique en forme d'ouverture
Polka fantaisiste
Rhapsodie laudative
Rhapsodie hawaïenne
Richard III Ouverture
Terugkeer naar het vaderland
Triumph Marsch
Variations
Valse symphonique nr. 1
Valse symphonique nr. 2
Vestris – Danse mimique
Quarantenaire – Marche solennelle

Stage works

1890 Le démon Dramatic cantata on a text by Lermontov in 2 acts for soloists, choir and orchestra
1892 Francesca da Rimini Dramatic oratorio based on a text by Dante for soloists, choir and orchestra
1895 Gens de mer (Zeevolk) Lyric drama in 2 acts
1896–1900 La captive Ballet in 2 acts
1903 Princesse Rayon de Soleil (Prinses Zonneschijn), légende féerique en quatre actes
1910 Les aventuriers (Rooversliefde) Musical drama in 1 act
1910–1921 Les deux bossus, ballet-Pantomime in 1 Act
1940 Elijah Music for a play by Cyriel Verschaeve
Daphné Ballett

Other works

1889–1890 Six mélodies
1902 Petite suite rustique for piano
1934 Le mas d'Icare for a film by Carlo Queeckers for string orchestra
1926 Sonatina for carillon
1934–1936 Romantische werkjes
1940 Aria di Timpani con 6 Variazioni
Suite nocturne for piano
Six chansons écossaises based on a text by Leconte de Lisle

Arrangements

Scheherazade arrangement of the symphonic suite by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov for solo piano

Books and writings

1913 Le Tutti orchestral
1923 Traité de lecture musicale
1923 Traité d'harmonie (3 Bände)
1926 Traité de musique militaire
Solfège – Cours complet de la lecture musicale en neuf volumes
1942 Notes de musique et souvenirs (memoirs)
1955 Arthur Meulemans: Paul Gilson (1865–1942)