Denise Launay (7 October 1906 – 13 March 1993) was a 20th-century French

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

Biography

Launay studied the

history of music Although definitions of music vary wildly throughout the world, every known culture partakes in it, and it is thus considered a cultural universal. The origins of music remain highly contentious; commentators often relate it to the origin of la ...

with

André Pirro André Gabriel Edmée Pirro (12 February 1869 – 11 November 1943) was a French musicologist and an organist. Born in Saint-Dizier, Pirro learned to play the organ from his father Jean Pirro. In Paris where he became and organist and a choirm ...

and

Paul-Marie Masson Paul-Marie Masson (9 September 1882 – 27 January 1954) was a French musicologist, music teacher and composer. A specialist of the lyrical work of Jean-Philippe Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; ; – ) was a French composer and music theor ...

at the Sorbonne, and the organ with

André Marchal André Louis Marchal (6 February 1894 – 27 August 1980) was a French organist and organ teacher. He was one of the great initiators of the twentieth-century organ revival in France and one of the cofounders of the ''Association des amis de l'org ...

and Gaston Litaize. From 1939, she was a curator at the

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

. She was the organist at the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette church in Paris during 35 ans.Musica et Memoria
/ref> She was buried at , alongside her father Paul Yvon, a member of the

Académie Nationale de Médecine Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institu ...

Works

Publications

*1965: ''Essai d’un commentaire de Titelouze par lui-même'' *1974: ''Anthologie du psaume français polyphonique (1610–1663)'', tome 1 (n°1 to 14), Éditions ouvrières, 35 p. *1993: ''La musique religieuse en France du Concile de Trente à 1804'',''La musique religieuse en France du Concile de Trente à 1804''
/ref> Société française de musicologie et Éditions Klincksieck, Paris, , 583 p.

References

External links

Denise Launay
on ''Symétrie''
Discography
on Discogs
Denise Launay
on Liturgia
''Les paraphrases bibliques aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Launay, Denise French classical organists French women organists 20th-century French musicologists French women musicologists 1906 births Musicians from Paris 1993 deaths 20th-century French organists 20th-century French women musicians 20th-century French classical musicians French women curators