Joseph Bonnet

Background

One of the major French pipe organ players, Joseph Bonnet was born in Bordeaux. He first studied with his father, an organist at Saint Eulalie.

Education

Bonnet also attended classes with Alexandre Guilmant at the Conservatoire de Paris. A few years later he finished with a first prize and, in 1906 was selected to become the organist at Saint Eustache, Paris.

Career

At the age of 14, he became official organist, first at Saint Nicholas and almost immediately at Saint Michael. In 1911 he had the privilege of succeeding Guilmant as concert organist at the conservatoire. He was actively teaching at this time and one of his notable students from his earlier years was Canadian organist Henri Gagnon.

On 28 January 1917 he moved to the United States, where he gave more than 100 concerts around the country until 1919.

Bonnet founded the organ department of the Eastman School of Music in 1921. He composed a large number of organ pieces and compiled the six-volume Historical Organ Recitals.

A few years later, Bonnet returned to Paris, where Denise Restout attended one of his master classes in 1933. In 1940, due to the outbreak of World World War II, he was forced to leave France and returned to North America.

He was organist at the Worcester Art Museum 1942-1943 and was appointed professor at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal in 1943.

In Paris Bonnet had taught a student from Québec named Conrad Bernier who studied with him 1923-1926, who eventually became one of the premier advocates of French organ music in the United States as both professor of organ and head of the Organ Department at Catholic University of America. Bonnet died on 2 August 1944, while vacationing in Saint Luce-sur-Mer, near Rimouski, Quebec. He is buried at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, near Magog (Québec).

Variations de concert, 1906

Poèmes d"automne, 1906

Douze pièces (3 volumes: 1909, 1910, 1913)

Chant triste, 1925

by Joseph Bonnet at the International Music Score Library Project

Poèmes d’automne: trois morceaux de concert ou de salon pour grand-orgue, operation

3 (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

Variations de concert: pour grand-orgue, op 1 (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

Historical organ-recitals: in six volumes / collected, edited and annotated by Joseph Bonnet (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

e-Partitions Organ scores. by Joseph Bonnet in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki).

Membership

He was elected an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity in June 1917.

Connections

teacher:

Louis Vierne