Background

Yon was born on August 8, 1886 in Settimo Vittone, Italy, the second son and sixth of eight children of Antonio and Margherita (Piazza) Yon. The parents were modest people, the father being a watch-maker, photographer, and storekeeper.

Education

At the age of six Pietro began to study the organ with Angelo Burbatti, cathedral organist in nearby Ivrea. His subsequent musical training included work with Polibio Fumagalli at the Milan Conservatory, with Franco Da Venezia, Roberto Remondi, and Giovanni Bolzoni at the Turin Conservatory (1901-1904), and, finally, at the Liceo di S. Cecilia in Rome, where his teachers were Remigio Renzi for organ, Alessandro Bustini and Giovanni Sgambati for piano, and Cesare De Sanctis for composition. He was graduated with honors in 1905 and became Renzi's assistant as organist at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Career

Yon soon began to play recitals in various cities in Europe and the United States. In 1907, following the example of his elder brother, S. Constantino Yon - also an organist -

he emigrated to New York City. For the next two decades - save for an interlude (1919-1921) back in Rome as assistant organist at the Cappella Giulia in St. Peter's - Yon was organist and choir director of the (Roman Catholic) Church of St. Francis Xavier in New York. He became a United States citizen in 1921.

Six years later he was appointed organist at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. He later succeeded Jacques C. Ungerer as choir director as well, and remained there until his death. Pietro Yon was not only a church musician but also a concert organist, composer, conductor, and teacher. He was well known on both sides of the Atlantic as a virtuoso player, and is credited with having introduced the paid-admission organ recital and the completely memorized program to New York. His fame naturally brought him talented pupils. He and his brother, who was organist at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, taught in a Carnegie Hall studio.

Yon's long list of compositions includes vocal works, among them The Triumph of St. Patrick (an oratorio with text by Armando Romano), twenty-one masses, and various motets; a Concerto Gregoriano for organ and orchestra; chamber music; many organ pieces; piano pieces; and songs, most with English texts. An instruction book, Organ Pedal Technic, was published posthumously in 1944.

Yon's mature career centered around St. Patrick's Cathedral, where he was credited with greatly advancing the cause of music. But his works were also performed elsewhere. The Triumph of St. Patrick had its world premiere at Carnegie Hall on April 29, 1934, in a performance attended by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, former governor Alfred E. Smith, and the conductor Arturo Toscanini; and Yon played under Walter Damrosch and other secular virtuosi. He was consulted in the design not only of the great Kilgen organ at the cathedral but also of the instrument installed at Carnegie Hall in 1929.

Yon suffered a cerebral stroke in April 1943. He died the following November at the Huntington, Long Island, home of his son's father-in-law. The war was a personal tragedy for Pietro Yon since the two countries he loved--Italy and the United States--were on opposite sides. Pietro Yon has been called "strong and aristocratic. " Certainly he was a force in his day. Conservative like the church he served all his life, he was not in the Italian avant-garde of composers but allied himself with those who continued to breathe new life into old traditions.

Achievements

• Yon was well known on both sides of the Atlantic as a virtuoso player, and is credited with having introduced the paid-admission organ recital and the completely memorized program to New York. He was by virtue of his position and talents the informal dean of Catholic church music for many years. His influence in the United States, however, was doubtless limited by the slow development of musical standards in the Roman Catholic Church and overshadowed by the predominance of Protestant church musicians in the professional world of music.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Hal Leonard Gesu Bambino In G Major for High Voice with Optional Violin Or Cello By Pietro Yon

    (Gesu Bambino In G Major for High Voice with Optional Viol...)

  • CONCERTO GREGORIANO (Gregorian Concert) REIMAGED per Organo ed Orchestra di Pietro A Yon. Complete Score for Organ and Piano. All Instruments. See Pictures for Instruments in the Score. (Enhanced and Cleaned Student Facsimile 2012)

    (CONCERTO GREGORIANO (Gregorian Concert) per Organo ed Orc...)

  • Gesu Bambino: Sheet

    (For violin with piano or organ.)

  • Gesu Bambino 2 Pianos 4 Hands

Membership

Yon was an organist and Director of Music in St Patrick's Cathedral (1927-1943).

Connections

On May 21, 1919, Yon married Francesca Pessagno, who died in 1929. They had one son, Mario Charles.

Father:

Antonio Yon

Mother:

Margherita Piazza

Spouse:

Francesca Pessagno

Brother:

S. Constantino Yon

Son:

Mario Charles

Friend:

Charles Marie Courboin

He was a Belgian-American organ virtuoso who enjoyed popularity during the 1920s.

References

• Encyclopedia of concert music
• Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians