Jean Gustave Bertrand

Jean Edouard Gustave Bertrand was a French writer devoted to the history and theory of music. Born in Vaugirard, near Paris, in 1834, he died in the French capital in 1880. His training combined a classical education with studies in archival work and palaeography, which directed his interest towards early music and the history of the organ.

After completing his studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he entered the École des Chartes in Paris, where he worked on the history of the organ from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Part of his thesis was published in the journal La maîtrise. He contributed to reference works such as the supplement to Fétis's Biographie universelle and the Complément de l'Encyclopédie moderne of Didot, and he also published numerous articles in the Parisian musical press.

As a member of the Commission des Travaux Historiques, he spent an extended period in Russia. His conclusions, probably based more on personal impressions than on rigorous study, were circulated in Les nationalités musicales and in reports for the Revue germanique and the journal Le nord. Towards the end of his life he directed several publications, among them Le nord and, later, République française.

His legacy rests above all on his writings on the organ, early music and the drame lyrique, especially Les nationalités musicales, a work that surveys composers such as Gluck, Mozart and Wagner.