Jean Guillou is regarded as one of the outstanding musicians of our time. Born in Angers on 18 April 1930, he was a pupil of the great French organists and composers Marcel Dupré, Maurice Duruflé, and Oliver Messiaen as from 1945. In the tradition of his masters, Jean Guillou has made a name for himself not only as one of the leading interpreters of organ music but as a composer as well.

 

In his works he has succeeded in pushing the seemingly given technical limits of instrumental playing still further. Since his youth he has developed a unique individual musical world in his compositions which, due to his fame as an interpreter, is often pushed into the background.

 

Having been the exclusive publisher of the works by Jean Guillou since 2004, Schott Musik International gives special attention to compositional diversity. Among the published works are symphonies, piano and organ concertos, chamber music works, and organ pieces. Apart from that, he adds to the organ repertoire a large number of extraordinary transcriptions of orchestral works (e.g. Mussorgsky’s ’Pictures at an Exhibition’).

 

The list of Jean Guillou’s works for organ is available here as a PDF file for download. 

 

Jean Guillou succeeds in showing the listener a new picture of the organ: His music conveys poetic, phantastic and enigmatic messages, removing the organ from the concept of being a mainly ’religious instrument’. His individual musical rhetoric and drama are also part of a doctoral thesis on his three major compositions ’La Chapelle des Abîmes’, ’Judith Symphony’ and ’Hypérion’.

 

With his virtuosity and individual unterstanding of registration and rhythm, Jean Guillou has rendered outstanding services to the interpretation of the works by Johann Sebastian Bach in particular. In 1985 alone, he performed his complete works for organ seven times. He has won much praise as a pianist as well. Long forgotten sonatas by Julius Reubke (a pupil of Franz Liszt) have been revived by him.

 

Since 1963, Jean Guillou has been official organist at the Church of Saint Eustache in Paris. In addition, he has given courses at the Zurich Meisterkurse since 1970.

 

All recordings produced by Jean Guillou in the 1960s and 1970s were released by Philips, as have been his own compositions interpreted by himself.

 

On Tuesday, 25 January, the Church of Saint Eustache will see the concert ’Hommage à Jean Guillou’ in his honour. Further concerts of this works will take place in Saarbrücken from 8-10 May 2005, with Guillou performing himself on 8 May.