Boëly, Alexandre Pierre François
(b Versailles, 19 April 1785; d Paris, 27 Dec 1858). French composer, organist and pianist. He was first taught music by his father, Jean François Boëly
(1739–1814), a theorist, chorister and harp master to the Countess of
Artois and Madame Elizabeth. At the age of 11 he entered the Paris
Conservatoire and studied the violin (with Guérillot) and the piano
(probably with Montgeroult, then Ladurner); however, he did not complete
his studies. Boëly followed a
solitary career and found the security of an official position only for a
short time late in life. He was first made provisional organist at St
Gervais-St Protias, Paris, from 1834 to 1838, and in 1840 became titular
organist at St Germain-l’Auxerrois, where he had the organ fitted with a
German pedalboard. There he gained a small but well-earned reputation
in the musical world as a great virtuoso and subtle interpreter. He
taught the piano at the choir school of Notre Dame Cathedral from about
1845 to 1850. During this time, however, his clergy and adherents tired
of his musical style, which they found too austere, and in 1851 he had
to resign his position at St Germain-l’Auxerrois to one of his pupils
from the choir school.
Largely self-taught as an artist, Boëly
cultivated his musical gifts and judgment by daily study of the works
of the old masters. He acquired a musical education and knowledge of
counterpoint that were outstanding for his time and was one of the first
organists in France to promote the music of Bach; he was also a
disciple of Haydn and Mozart, as well as an early admirer of Beethoven.
His compositions include two three-part masses and a large repertory of
piano, organ and chamber works. From his first works, he showed an
unusual maturity combined with a lyricism which, in its romantic
bravura, occasionally looked forward to Schumann. As the aesthetic of
the organ in France changed during his career, so Boëly
began to use it in a grander, more symphonic manner. His piano music
also reflects the evolution in the dimensions and use of the instrument,
derived from the 18th-century piano, which had taken different forms –
upright, square, pedal and grand – via the researches of Erard and
Pleyel.
Boëly holds an important, if
unappreciated, position in French music, owing to the nobility of his
thought and the innovations of his musical language, which was based on
an audacious system of modulation and frequent chromaticism. Reacting
against the frivolous, mediocre pieces that had become the vogue in the
Paris salons during the July monarchy, he took refuge in a voluntary
archaism, a kind of neo-classicism unique in France at the time. Living
on the fringes of official musical life, he remained unknown to the
public; but he won the trust and admiration of an élite group of
friends, among them Marie Bigot, Baillot, Kalkbrenner and Cramer. He
also attracted the attention of young artists such as Franck and
Saint-Saëns, who regarded him as a guardian of the noble and pure
classical organ tradition.
above article from GROVE
