Georges Gillet

Georges-Vital-Victor Gillet (May 17, 1854 – February 8, 1920) was a French oboist, teacher and composer. In addition to premiering oboe works by prominent French composers of the 19th century, including Émile Paladilhe, Charles-Édouard Lefebvre, Clémence de Grandval, and Camille Saint-Saëns, among others, Gillet was the teacher of Fernand Gillet and Marcel Tabuteau at the Paris Conservatory, helped develop the F. Lorée brand of oboe, and composed a number of études that are still used today.

Biography Born into a musical family in Louviers on 17 May 1854, Gillet and his brother, cellist and composer, Ernest Gillet (1856–1940) were musical prodigies. Gillet began studying the oboe when he was twelve and, less than a year later, entered the Paris Conservatory to study with Charles Colin. After receiving the premier prix at 15 years old, he graduated in 1869. Gillet died February 8, 1920, at the age of 65, and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. As a teacher, two of Gillet's notable students were his nephew, Fernand Gillet and Marcel Tabuteau. Tabuteau used his teacher's methods to adapt a new playing style in America. Other students included two principal oboists of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Albert Weiss and Georges Longy; Alfred Barthel, principal of the Chicago Symphony; Louis Speyer and Alexandre Duvoir. Gillet is credited with introducing vibrato at the Paris Conservatory as well as teaching students to warm up by playing three chromatic scales in thirds in any given practice session. The Lorée company was established when François Lorée left his job as the last foreman of Triebert. According to Laila Storch, Gillet encouraged Lorée to open his own company. François Lorée and his son Adolphe Lucien Lorée worked with Gillet and made F. Lorée oboes one of the most popular brands manufactured. In the introduction to the études, Gillet stated that he wrote the studies for his students in order to be able to play the increasingly difficult solo and orchestral repertoire for the oboe, and that composers should use the études as a rough guide to the technical possibilities of the oboe.

The études are in common use today.