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Concept
Louis Vierne
Summary
Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French organist and composer. As the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death, he focused on organ music, including six organ symphonies and a Messe solennelle for choir and two organs. He toured Europe and the United States as a concert organist. His students included Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Duruflé.
Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers on 8 October 1870, the son of Henri-Alfred Vierne (1828–1886), a teacher, who became a journalist. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal de la Vienne in Poitiers, where he met his future wife, Marie-Joséphine Gervaz. The couple had four children. Louis was born nearly blind due to congenital cataracts. His unusual gift for music was discovered early. When he was only two years of age, he heard the piano for the first time: his neighbor played him a Schubert lullaby, and after he had finished young Louis promptly began to pick out the notes of the lullaby on the piano. From April 1873, his father worked for the Paris-Journal, moving with the family to Paris. At age six, Louis underwent an iridectomy in both eyes. He was then able to distinguish shapes and people, and could read large letters. He took piano lessons with Madame Gosset in Lille, where his father worked for the Lille Memorial. She transcribed the music on large staves. He also learned Braille.
In 1880, the family returned to Paris where his father worked for several newspapers including Le Figaro. Vierne studied the piano with Louis Specht, a blind teacher at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for the Young Blind). He was impressed when listening to César Franck playing the organ in 1881:The organ played a mysterious prelude, quite unlike any I had heard at Lille; I was bowled over and became almost ecstatic. ... I could not hold back my tears. I knew nothing; I understood nothing; but my instinct was violently shaken by this expressive music echoing through every pore. Vierne was accepted as a student of the institution in 1881.
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