François Daniel Roth

(in progress along with Norbert Dufourcq, Marcel Dupré, its French translation, Gaston Bélier, and Jean Langlais)

**François Daniel Roth** *(born 31 October 1942 in Mulhouse, Alsace)* is a French-German composer, organist, pedagogue, and author. An organ student of Rolande Ginabat-Falcinelli and Marie-Claire Alain, he was the winner of the Grand Prix de Chartres in 1971. He is currently one of two titular organists of the tribune organ at the Église Saint-Sulpice in Paris (the other one is Sophie-Veronique Cauchefer-Choplin) and the two have served as such since 1985, succeeding Jean-Jacques Grunenwald. He formerly occupied titulaireship at the Basilique Sacre-Cœur.

Roth was the consultant for the restoration of Saint-Sulpice's grand organ by Jean Renaud of Nantes in 1989 and is also responsible for assisting in its maintenance. For some time he was the organ professor at the Hochschule in Stuttgart.

He has had four children with his late wife Odile Mangin (1939-2015), his most renowned is the conductor and flautist François-Xavier Roth. Daniel Roth is currently one of the world's most revered organists and the second most popular one (arguably, the first is Olivier Latry). As a composer, he is primarily known for his *Livre d'Orgue pour le magnificat*.

## Biography

### Early life and initial studies

François Daniel Roth was born on Halloween of 1942 in his family's home in Mulhouse. His father was the merchant René Roth (of German ancestry), and his mother was Angèle Higelin.

As a young boy, Roth had a passion for drawing and painting and spent hours a day making sketches of his surroundings. When he was 10, his father bought a piano for the household, as a cousin of Roth's had a piano, and he forced Daniel to study under a strict teacher. He was uninterested in the piano for some time, but after a while he also he began taking an interest in his local church's organ and liturgical atmosphere, which he heard every Sunday - built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1863) and enlarged by the Maison Rinckenbach (1909) at the town's Église Saint-Étienne.

He later entered the Mulhouse conservatoire to study under Joseph Victor Meyer, who taught him composition, piano, and the cello. Later in life, when Roth was 10 years old, What truly piqued his interest and effectively set off his career choice, however, was the film "II est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer" (a biopic of Albert Schweitzer, a figure he has revered for his entire life; played by Pierre Fresnay), which he watched when he was 11. He convinced his mother that he should take up organplaying, and eventually Roth was able to begin studying the organ with a lady. The Roth parents paid her, and also took notice of the fact that he was very proficient and practised the instrument for at least six hours daily.

He, his colleagues, and teacher were admirers of Marcel Dupré and his school (his treatises were used), his teacher later convinced the Roth family to send the young boy (who was a teenager) to Paris to study at its famous conservatoire, one of the finest in Europe.

### Conservatoire years

Roth travelled to Paris when he was seventeen and after a while, entered the harmony class of Maurice Duruflé in 1960. The following year, he entered the organ class of Rolande Falcinelli and improvised under strict rules as were institute regulations.
Falcinelli, one of Dupré's closest students, was very kind to Roth (he was addressed as "mon petit", she was addressed as "Madame") and carefully organised his studies. He was also forced to play from memory, something not required in Mulhouse.

In 1962, he entered the class in counterpoint and fugue. In 1963, Roth graduated from Falcinelli's organ class and got the *Premiere Prix* from it. Falcinelli and Roth remained good friends, but he continued to wish to continue learning the organ.

Feeling disparage in the technique of Falcinelli, which she had gotten from her teacher Dupré, he wished to learn how to play music like that of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach without the 'absolute value' of that which he learned. He approached Marie-Claire Alain, the sister of the renowned composer Jehan, also a student of Dupré (but not as strict) for private organ lessons, which she accepted. Alain had a very casual and informal friendship with Roth (even while teaching), compared to the utmost formalities given by Falcinelli. He later remarked the following:

> *"You have to research the composer, his instrument, his touch, not playing all the repertoire with the same touch. And then of course there’s the difference between the composers who want you to play the music straight and the composers who use rubato, like César Franck."*
>
>

Roth, who was still by then a hobby organist, was then approached by Falcinelli in Easter of 1963 to serve as her assistant organist at the Basilique Sacré-Cœur. This was due to her modernist style and contemporaryism, which the priest of the basilica disliked. Falcinelli and the priest agreed the following week that she would only play for one Sunday a month, with Roth playing the rest as the *organiste adjoint*.

This went along for some time until 1973. Roth was also giving regular concerts at the basilica (this has been discontinued as of now due to the site's perpetual adoration).