Vilain, Léandre

Annelies Focquaert (translation: Joris Duytschaever)

Léandre Vilain was born in the Walloon village of Trazegnies, the son of a mine superintendent of small means in the mining industry at Courcelles. The romanticized story about him - the chatelain of Trazegnies allegedly took him under his wings and sent him to the recently founded ‘Ecole de musique religieuse’ in Mechelen - is by and large correct. Vilain became an organ pupil of Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, without however being registered officially in the records. Vilain combined his studies in Mechelen with a modest job as organist for the Josephite Fathers in Leuven.

After Lemmens’s sudden death in January 1881 Vilain transferred to the Conservatory in Brussels, where he was taught by Alphonse Mailly. In 1886 he earned both the first prize in harmony (in the class of Joseph Dupont) and the first prize for organ, followed in 1887 by the first prize in practical harmony (class of E. Samuel) as well as the rarely awarded ‘Diplôme de capacité’ or diploma of competence in 1889. This diploma was awarded only four times in Mailly’s class: to Jean-Baptiste De Pauw in 1873, Charles Danneels in 1881, Léandre Vilain in 1889 and August De Boeck in 1891.

From 1887 to 1889 Vilain was Mailly’s assistant. On 3 March 1890 Vilain was appointed organist of St Peter and Paul’s church in Ostend, after a convincing audition on the Anneessens organ of that church. Vilain succeeded Auguste Wiegand, who was to pursue his career in Australia. Even when the church was ravaged by fire some years later and the organ destroyed by fire, Vilain remained organist in the temporary church, until in 1907 the rebuilt church was presented with a three-manual Schyven organ. From 1891 Vilain also took over Wiegand’s position at the famous Kursaal of the ‘Queen of the Beaches’, where he became titular organist of a second Anneessens organ, drawing fun-loving crowds with his brilliant organ-playing, including arrangements and improvisations. In addition to his interpretations of the organ part in orchestral works his weekly (sometimes daily) solo recitals contributed a great deal to the fame of the Kursaal orchestra, conducted then by Léon Rinskopf, with whom stars such as Camille Saint-Saëns, Richard Strauss and Enrico Caruso liked to perform.

Vilain also made an international career and was in great demand for inaugurations of new organs or for charity concerts (playing together with famous names such as Eugène Ysaÿe). His organ tours brought him to venues in London, Bradford, Rugby, Manchester, Glasgow, Rome, Algiers and Marseille. Concurrently his charisma was responsible for the presence of famous organists as recitalists in Ostend, such as Charles-Marie Widor (who on 23 July 1895 dedicated a copy of his new Symphonie Gothique ‘à son ami L.Vilain’, on the occasion of the grand Widor concert which then happened at the Kursaal). Vilain’s late romantic and popular style was hand in glove with what the Ostend rich bourgeoisie and the tourists loved to hear, but often he liked to combine this with more serious music, which he also had at his finger tips.

He regularly played Belgian music, such as the premiere of Joseph Jongen’s Qautre Pièces for organ (5 July 1911). Newspapers from that period acclaim his ‘concerts vraiment artistiques’, but at the same time he was criticized because his choice of programmes was too popular and because he cultivated virtuosity for its own sake, thus covering up his lack of expressiveness. In September 1902 he succeeded Joseph Tilborghs as organ teacher at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent, his pupils including Maxime Vanneste, August Maeckelberghe, Jenny Van Rysselberghe, L. Impe, D. Clément, Solange De Gryse and Berthe Pluym. When in 1903 the position of organ teacher at the Brussels Conservatory became vacant, Vilain applied too, but director Gevaert did not admit him to the comparative exam because of his ties with the Conservatory in Ghent. From 1909 Vilain combined his teaching assignment in Ghent with a position as teacher of musical education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ostend.

After the First World War the golden ‘belle époque’ of Ostend was past forever, and the worry-free luxury of olden days had to cede for more sobriety. At the Kursaal the cultural manifestations and recitals faced constraints, and Vilain’s style was considered passé for lack of focus on serious music. Even so, Vilain kept being cherished for a long time by his fan club, and in December 1920 he still undertook a successful tour across Spain. In he same year he was dubbed Officer in the Order of Leopold; later also Officer in the Crown Order. In November 1931 he retired as organ teacher in Ghent and was succeeded by Flor Peeters. Just before the beginning of the Second World War, on 3 March 1940, Vilain celebrated his golden jubilee as organist of St Peter and Paul church. During the Second World War Vilain, like so many other elderly people from Ostend, was evacuated from the city. During the whole period he stayed in Ninove, where his pupil Jenny Van Rysselberghe lived. In January 1945 he returned to Ostend, a city that was never to be restored to its old glory: the magnificent Kursaal had been sacrificed to the Atlantikwall, and the organ had vanished together with the demolished building.

Vilain regularly played works of his own during recitals, with typical titles such as Invocation, Pourquoi?, Alleluia, Tristis est anima mea, Marche Solennelle, In memoriam or Mélodies. His Treurmarsch (Funeral March), dedicated to Alphonse Mailly, was published in 1895 by the Organists’ Association of West Flanders. Vilain died in his ‘Villa Widor’ in Ostend, after a short illness. In his native town a street was named after him, in Ostend a square.