THE STUDENTS OF TOURNEMIRE
Claude ARRIEU
1903-1990
Joseph BONNET
1884-1944
Lucien CAPET
1873-1928
DANIEL-LESUR
1908-2002
Jean DOYEN
1907-1982
Maurice DURUFLÉ
1902-1986
ERMEND-BONNAL
1880-1944
André FLEURY
1903-1995
Monique HAAS
1909-1987
Georges HUGON
1904-1980
Jean LANGLAIS
1907-1991
Charles LETESTU
Gaston LITAIZE
1909-1991
Douglas Stuart MOORE
1893-1969
Pierre MOREAU
1907-1991
Ludovic PANEL
Raymond PETIT
1893-
Henriette PUIG-ROGET
1910-1992
Pierre SANCAN
1916-2008
Henri TOMASI
1901-1971
Source
André Fleury's recollections on Charles Tournemire
Reinen Dercksen
On may 13th 1994, today exactly 26 years ago, I had the honour to have an interview with André
Fleury in his house in Le Chesnay, near Versailles. The composer and organist spoke about his
teachers Eugène Gigout and Louis Vierne, Marcel Dupré, the organ of Sainte Clotilde, Fleury’s own
career and many other issues. I also asked him about the personality and the character of Charles
Tournemire, of whom André Fleury was remplaçant in Sainte Clotilde. The interview was recorded on
tape. A French translator first made a complete transcription in French and then a translation into
Dutch. Here are some excerpts (in my best English) of this interview.
After a question about the improvisations of Marcel Dupré, I asked André Fleury:
So, Dupré’s improvisations were in a way the opposite of the improvisations by Charles Tournemire?
André Fleury: ‘Charles Tournemire was an inexhaustable source of spontanity. His improvisations
were a reflection of his mentality, fascinating, capricious, always different, but almost always
magnificent.’
How would you describe and compare the personalities of Marcel Dupré and Charles Tournemire?
‘They were completely different, they had opposite personalities. Tournemire was fantasy in his own
person, while Dupré was in his playing severity in his own person. Tournemire was spontanuous and
very direct, but he was not a bon vivant. He could be very harsh and often I found him puzzling. When
I had to choose between Tournemire’s improvisations and Dupré’s improvisation I rather would
choose for Tournemire, the unexpected.’
Flor Peeters, who conducted an intensive correspondence with Charles Tournmire, until the very end
of Tournemires life, sometimes revealed his presumption that Tournemire ended his own life. Were
there rumours about that idea?
‘At the end of his life, Tournemire was very depressed and entangled. We were sure that he did not
just had drown in the Gulf of Arcachon. That he had committed suicide, seemed logic to us. Somehow,
it corresponded with our expectations.’
But what was the reason for Tournemire being depressed?
‘I don’t know. He had an inscrutable mind and I could not look into his soul. And what’s more, he hided
what really was going on in his soul by playing a comediant. But his periods of depression were long
and intense, that is also the reason I had to replace him so many times in Sainte Clotilde. Actually, he