Jeanne Demessieux

Jeanne Demessieux (Montpellier, 1921 – Paris, 1968) was a French organist and composer whose career was developed almost entirely within the sphere of the organ, the instrument on which she achieved international renown in the post-war period. Born in Montpellier, she trained in Paris with Magda Tagliaferro, with Jean and Noël Gallon, and with Marcel Dupré, and at the Paris Conservatoire she won prizes in harmony, piano, fugue and counterpoint, and organ.

Her career began at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Paris, where she was organist from 1933, and she later moved to Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in 1962. After completing her studies with Dupré, she made her debut as a recitalist at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1946. From then on she toured numerous countries, with frequent visits to England, where at her first London recital in 1947 she improvised a four-movement organ symphony on themes proposed by four of the city's music critics. She toured North America in 1953, 1955 and 1958. In 1952 she was appointed professor of organ at the Liège Conservatoire, and in 1962 she took up the post of organist at the Madeleine. She was the first woman invited to play at Westminster Cathedral and at Westminster Abbey, and she took part in the opening ceremony of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in 1967.

Accounts of her technique agree in noting a remarkable virtuosity from the outset of her career. In her final years she showed a greater interpretative commitment, which suggests that she had scarcely reached full maturity as a performer when she died prematurely in 1968.

Her published catalogue includes Six Études (1946), Sept méditations sur le Saint Esprit (1947), Triptyque op. 7 (1949), Poème for organ and orchestra op. 9 (1949), 12 Chorale Preludes on Gregorian themes op. 8 (1954), Te Deum op. 11 (1965), Prelude and Fugue in C op. 12 (1965) and Répons pour le temps de Pâques (1968, posthumous). Among her unpublished works is La chanson de Roland for mezzo-soprano, choir and orchestra. Several of her recorded performances were reissued in the 1990s by the Dutch label Festivo.