Paul Vidal
Illustration — 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.
Also recorded as Paul Antonin Vidal
Paul Vidal
French composer and teacher.

De kunst · Public domain
- Born
- 1863 · Toulouse.
- Died
- 1931 · rue Ballu.
- Nationality
- France
- Occupation
- conductor · composer · musicologist · music educator · university teacher · pianist · music arranger · musician
- Fields
- opera
- Movements
- classical music
- Education
- Conservatoire de Paris · Toulouse Regional Conservatory
- Teachers
- Antonin Marmontel · Émile Durand
- Honours
- Prix de Rome · resident at the Villa Medici · Officer of the Legion of Honour · Knight of the Legion of Honour
- Languages
- French
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Illustration — 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.
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Authority files
museum · 162955f7-44b1-49ce-a091-2af9146aef24 · wikidata · Q1460425 · wikipedia · Paul Vidal
In this article
Life and career
Life and career
Paul Vidal studied at Conservatoire de Paris and Toulouse Regional Conservatory. Training under Antonin Marmontel and Émile Durand is recorded. Lili Boulanger, Eugène Bigot and André Fleury are recorded as having studied under Paul Vidal. The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera. Employment is recorded with Conservatoire de Paris. Positions recorded include president.
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), 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. 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. He taught at the Conservatoire de Paris, where his students included composers Lili Boulanger, Marc Delmas, Jacques Ibert and Vladimir Fédorov. He died in Paris, aged 67. His brother Joseph Bernard Vidal (1859-1924) was also a composer.
Identity
Identity
Paul Vidal is recorded as conductor, composer, musicologist, music educator and university teacher.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1931
Paul Vidal died at rue Ballu.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
FR.
Country
Toulouse.
Birth place
rue Ballu.
Death place
Compositions and pedagogy
• Illustration — 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.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q1460425: Paul Vidal
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Paul Vidal”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Institutional database
- MusicBrainz artist record for Paul Vidal
Scholarly · MetaBrainz Foundation
scholarly publication
- Vidal, Paul (opera), Oxford Music Online, 2002
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2002
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Dictionnaire de la musique. Bordas. 1979. 2-04-010726-6.
- 2.M. Paul Vidal. Le Temps (quotidien français, 1829-1842). 65. 12007. 4 lire en. 1894-04-11. 2711-6670 .
- 3.Toulouse en noir et blanc. Milan. 84. 1994. 231663251.
- 4.Au conservatoire. Le Ménestrel. Heugel. 93. 24. 263 lire en. 1931-06-12. 2391-3096 .
Bibliography printed in the source article · 5
- Marc Honegger, Dictionnaire de la musique, Bordas, 1986
- Dictionnaire biographique des musiciens. Robert Laffont. 1995. 2-221-07778-4.
- Dictionnaire de la Musique en France au. Fayard. 2003. 2-213-59316-7.
- L'intégrale : Correspondance (1895-1937), écrits et entretiens. Le Passeur Éditeur. 2018. 978-2-36890-577-7.
- Maurice Ravel. Correspondance, écrits et entretiens. Gallimard. 2025. 9782073111111.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
MusicBrainz artist record for Paul VidalMetaBrainz Foundation
Verifiedscholarly publication
Vidal, Paul (opera), Oxford Music Online, 2002Crossref registry
Verifiedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q1460425: Paul VidalWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
Paul Vidal studied at Conservatoire de Paris and Toulouse Regional Conservatory. He trained under Antonin Marmontel and Émile Durand. Each of those relationships is stated by the authority record rather than inferred from style.
His work is associated with classical music. He was employed by Conservatoire de Paris. Recorded position is president. He belonged to SACEM. Recognition and collections. Vidal received Prix de Rome, resident at the Villa Medici, Officer of the Legion of Honour and Knight of the Legion of Honour.
Career and activity
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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