Life and Career
Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse, and studied at the conservatoires there and in Paris, under Jules Massenet at the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy. On 8 January 1886, in Rome, Vidal and Debussy performed Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony at two pianos for Liszt himself, an after-dinner performance that Liszt apparently slept through. The following day they played Emmanuel Chabrier's Trois valses romantiques for Liszt.
Vidal conducted at the Paris Opera where he made his first appearance directing Gwendoline in 1894 (he had coached the singers for the Paris premiere in 1893), and later conducted the first performance of Ariane and the Paris premieres of Roma by Massenet, and L'étranger by d’Indy. He co-founded the Concerts de l’Opera with Georges Marty. He was Music Director of the Opéra-Comique from 1914-19, conducting revivals of Alceste, Don Juan, Iphigénie en Tauride, Irato, Le Rêve and Thérèse. He also conducted the premieres of several operas and ballets. He taught at the Paris Conservatoire, where his students included composers Marc Delmas, Jacques Ibert and Vladimir Fédorov. He died in Paris, aged 67.
His brother Joseph Bernard Vidal (1859-1924) was also a composer.
Read more about this topic: Paul Vidal
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:
“There are situations in life to which the only satisfactory response is a physically violent one. If you don’t make that response, you continually relive the unresolved situation over and over in your life.”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)