André Gédalge

André Gédalge (Paris, 1856 – Chessy, 1926) was a composer and, above all, a teacher of considerable influence on French music at the beginning of the twentieth century. His name remains associated with the teaching of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire, where he trained several generations of composers.

Before devoting himself to music, he worked as a bookseller. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twenty-eight, where he studied composition with Guiraud. In 1885 he won the second Prix de Rome, and afterwards remained as assistant to Guiraud and Massenet. In 1905 he was appointed professor of counterpoint and fugue at the same Conservatoire. A year later, in 1906, he was entrusted with the inspection of the provincial conservatoires, an experience that brought him closer to elementary musical education and gave rise to his book on music teaching through the methodical training of the ear, published in Paris in 1920.

The Traité de la fugue, published in Paris in 1901, is his best-known written work and, according to the pedagogical tradition that received it, remains unsurpassed. Among his pupils are such distinguished names as Schmitt, Ravel, Milhaud and Honegger.

As a composer he remained faithful to the line of Saint-Saëns and Lalo and stood apart from the novelties of Impressionism, something he expressed clearly in the dedication of his Third Symphony (1910): "sans littérature ni peinture". His mastery of counterpoint is evident in his scores, and he was also an admired orchestrator. His legacy endures above all through his teaching and his treatise.