Henri Büsser

Paul Henri Büsser (16 January 1872 – 30 December 1973) was a French classical composer, organist, conductor and teacher. Among his teachers were César Franck, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. In addition to his own compositions Büsser edited and orchestrated a wide range of music – mostly but not exclusively French – dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries. He was at various times in his career the conductor of the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, and professor of composition at the Conservatoire de Paris. Life and career Büsser was born in Toulouse of partly German ancestry. He was the son of an organist, Fritz Büsser (1846–1879), and sang as a boy in the choir of Toulouse Cathedral under before entering the École Niedermeyer de Paris in 1885 to study with Alexandre Georges. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1889, studying organ with César Franck and composition with Ernest Guiraud, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. He took the second prize in the 1892 Prix de Rome competition. In that year, through the influence of Gounod, he was appointed organist of Saint-Cloud, near Paris, a post he held for 30 years. but Büsser soon mastered the work and the composer inscribed