Guillaume-Antoine Calvière

Guillaume-Antoine Calvière was a very talented virtuoso organist, and held several Parisian stands: the Sainte-Chapelle, Saint-Germain des Prés, Sainte-Marguerite, as well as the prestigious posts of Notre-Dame and a district of the Royal Chapel where he was appointed organist in 1738.

We know that he was an admirer of François Couperin and that his work included motets as well as organ pieces. But almost nothing remains (a short piece kept in the library of the Brussels Conservatory) because, after his death, his widow entrusted the manuscripts to Louis-Claude Daquin, his colleague and rival but nevertheless friend, and his successor to Notre-Dame so that he can edit it. But the latter neglected to do so, as for most of his own compositions.

During his lifetime, he owed his fame especially to a spectacular Te Deum for choirs and orchestra, with his Judex crederis particularly striking according to what Choron reports. He trained in 1754, for six months, Jean-Baptiste Nôtre, who then became for more than half a century organist of the cathedral of Toul and left a handwritten Organ Book.