{{short description|French composer, conductor and music teacher (1863–1931)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}} thumb|Portrait of Paul Vidal, 1924 '''Paul Antonin Vidal''' (16 June 1863 – 9 April 1931) was a French composer, conductor and music teacher mainly active in Paris.<ref name="Grove">Charlton D. Paul Vidal. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.'' Macmillan, London and New York, 1997.</ref>
==Life and career== Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse, and studied at the conservatoires there and in Paris, under Jules Massenet at the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy. On 8 January 1886, in Rome, Vidal and Debussy performed Franz Liszt's ''Faust Symphony'' at two pianos for Liszt himself, an after-dinner performance that Liszt apparently slept through. The following day they played Emmanuel Chabrier's ''Trois valses romantiques'' for Liszt.
Vidal conducted at the Opéra National de Paris where he made his first appearance directing ''Gwendoline'' in 1894 (he had coached the singers for the Paris premiere in 1893<ref>Chabrier E, ''Correspondance''. Ed Delage R, Durif F. Klincksieck, 1994. 93-36n.</ref>), and later conducted the first performance of ''Ariane'' and the Paris premieres of ''Roma'' by Massenet, and ''L'étranger'' by d’Indy. He co-founded the Concerts de l’Opera with Georges Marty.<ref name="Grove"/> He was Music Director of the Opéra-Comique from 1914 to 1919, conducting revivals of ''Alceste'', ''Don Juan'' (the French version of Mozart's Don Giovanni), ''Iphigénie en Tauride'', ''L'irato'', ''Le Rêve'' and ''Thérèse''. He also conducted the premieres of several operas and ballets.<ref>Wolff, Stéphane. ''Un demi-siècle d'Opéra-Comique (1900-1950).'' André Bonne, Paris, 1953.</ref> He taught at the Conservatoire de Paris, where his students included composers Lili Boulanger, Marc Delmas, Jacques Ibert and Vladimir Fédorov. {{See LMST|Paul|Vidal}} He died in Paris, aged 67.
His brother Joseph Bernard Vidal (1859-1924) was also a composer.<ref name="Grove"/>
==Compositions and pedagogy== [[File:Tombe de Paul Vidal.jpg|thumb|right|His grave in the cimetière des Batignolles]] His compositions are virtually forgotten today: they include the operas ''Eros'' (1892), ''Guernica'' (1895) and ''La Burgonde'' (1898); ballets ''La Maladetta'' (1893) and ''Fête russe'' (1893, arr. - both choreographed by Joseph Hansen, Paris Opera); a cantata ''Ecce Sacerdos magnus''; and incidental music to Théodore de Banville's ''Le Baiser'' (1888) and Catulle Mendès' ''La Reine Fiammette'' (1898). In collaboration with André Messager, he also orchestrated piano music of Frédéric Chopin into a ''Suite de danses'' (1913).
He is perhaps better known today through his keyboard harmony exercises, ''Recueil de basses et chants donnés'' which was a favorite teaching tool of his pupil, the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, and subsequently many of her students including Narcis Bonet who has republished a selection of these exercises under the title ''Paul Vidal, Nadia Boulanger: A Collection of Given Basses and Melodies''.
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMSLP|Vidal, Paul}}
{{Opéra-Comique music directors}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vidal, Paul}} Category:1863 births Category:1931 deaths Category:Musicians from Toulouse Category:French Romantic composers Category:French opera composers Category:French male opera composers Category:French male conductors (music) Category:20th-century French male classical pianists Category:20th-century French classical pianists Category:19th-century French male classical pianists Category:19th-century French classical pianists Category:Prix de Rome for composition Category:Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris Category:Conservatoire de Paris alumni Category:Pupils of Jules Massenet Category:Burials at Batignolles Cemetery Category:20th-century French conductors (music)