- Paul Vidal
teacher.
He studied at the conservatoires in
Toulouse and in Paris withJules Massenet . He won thePrix de Rome in 1883, one year beforeClaude Debussy did. On 8 January, 1886, in Rome, Vidal and Debussy performedFranz Liszt 's "Faust Symphony " at two pianos for Liszt himself, an after-dinner performance that Liszt apparently slept through. The following day they playedChabrier 's two-piano "Valses romantiques" for Liszt. Vidal conducted at the Paris Opera and theOpéra-Comique and taught at theParis Conservatoire ; his pupils includedJacques Ibert . His compositions, including theopera s "Eros" (1892), "Guernica" (1895) and "La Burgonde" (1898), are virtually forgotten today.He is perhaps better known today through his keyboard harmony exercises, "Basses et Chantes Données" which was a favorite teaching tool of his pupil, the legendary pedagogue
Nadia Boulanger , and subsequently many of her students includingNarcis Bonet who has republished a selection of these exercises under the title "Paul Vidal, Nadia Boulanger: A Collection of Given Basses and Melodies".
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