Decaux, Abel
Decaux, Abel
Decaux, Abel , French organist, teacher, and composer; b. Auffay, 1869; d. Paris, March 19, 1943. He studied organ with Widor and Guilmant and composition with Massenet at the Paris Cons. He served as organist at the church of Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre; then was prof, of organ at the Paris Schola Cantorum; from 1923 to 1937 he taught organ at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. Decaux composed very little, but he attracted posthumous attention by the discovery, and performance, of his group of piano pieces under the title Clairs de lune (the plural being of the essence):Minuit passe, La Ruelle, Le Cimetiere, and La Mer, written between 1900 and 1907 and publ. in 1913, which seem to represent early examples of piano writing usually associated with Debussy and Ravel; the similarity of styles is indeed striking, which indicates that Impressionism was,”in the air,” and in the ears, of impressionable French musicians early in the new century
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire