Jeanne Demessieux

Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Demessieux (13 February 1921 – 11 November 1968) was a French organist, pianist, composer, and teacher.

After taking private piano lessons with her elder sister, Yolande, Jeanne entered the Montpellier Conservatoire in 1928.

Four years later, she obtained first prizes in solfège and piano.

In 1933, she began her studies at the Paris Conservatoire; studying piano with Simon Riera and Magda Tagliaferro, harmony with Jean Gallon, counterpoint and fugue with Noël Gallon, and composition with Henri Büsser.

The same year, she was appointed titular organist at Saint-Esprit, a post she held for 19 years.

From 1936 to 1939, Demessieux studied organ privately with Marcel Dupré, whose organ class at the Conservatoire she joined in 1939.

After receiving a first prize in organ performance and improvisation in 1941, Demessieux studied privately with Dupré for five more years, before she played her début concert at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1946, as part of a series of 12 solo concerts between 1946 and 1948.

This was the beginning of her career as an international concert organist and improviser, but also coinciding with Dupré irrevocably turning his back on Demessieux.

In 1947, she became the first female organist to sign a record contract, with a performance of Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 for Decca Records.

She combined this with demanding academic duties, serving as professor of organ and improvisation at the Nancy Conservatoire (1950–1952) and the Conservatoire Royal in Liège (1952–1968).

Among her students were Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, Pierre Labric, and Louis Thiry.

She gave more than 700 concerts in France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and the United States (1953, 1955, and 1958).

Demessieux always performed from memory, having an active repertoire of more than 2,500 compositions, including the complete organ works of Bach, Franck, the major organ works of Liszt and Mendelssohn, and all of Dupré's organ works up to Opus 41.

A prolific recording artist, she was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque Award in 1961 for her complete recording of Franck's organ works (1959, a world premiere recording).

She was the chief organist at Saint-Esprit for 29 years and at La Madeleine in Paris starting in 1962.

She performed internationally as a concert organist and was the first female organist to sign a record contract.

She went on to record many organ works, including her own compositions.

Born in Montpellier (Hérault) Jeanne Demessieux was the second child of Marie-Madeleine Demessieux (née Mézy) and Étienne Demessieux.

In 1962, Demessieux was appointed as titular organist at La Madeleine in Paris.

In 1967, after several years of negotiations, she signed a contract with Decca Records for a recording of the complete organ works by Olivier Messiaen at Notre-Dame de Paris, with which she could not comply to due to health reasons.

According to her biographer, Christiane Trieu-Colleney, Demessieux underwent medical treatment and did not perform in concert for most of the last year of her life.

Jeanne Demessieux died on 11 November 1968 in Paris, at age 47, from throat cancer.

She was buried in the Demessieux family tomb in the Cimetière du Grau-du-Roi, not far from Aigues-Mortes.

Demessieux wrote more than 30 compositions.

A third of these were written for the organ, but she also produced pieces for piano, numerous songs, a handful of choral works (including an oratorio, La Chanson de Roland), and orchestral works.

About half of her output has been published as of 2021.

In 2021, Decca Records released an 8-CD box set with her complete recordings for this label between 1947 and 1967, including the above-mentioned 1959 world-premiere recording of Franck's complete organ works.