Talk:Léonard Gautier

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This article was mentioned as not noteworthy, however this composer appears with his most famous song "Le Secret" in "The Piano Bench of Classical Music", as can be seen in this Amazon's preview of the index of the book: The Piano Bench of Classical Music. I believe forming part of a compendium of famous classical music pieces makes this composer noteworthy. Roelvermeulen (talk) 07:33, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I have been delving in the British Newspaper Archive and have discovered that "Le secret" was not composed by this composer but by Swiss/English pianist and conductor Leonard Gautier who changed his name c. 1882 from Placid von Tugginer. b. c. 1848, Switzerland; d. 10th Dec 1926, Redcar, Yorkshire, England Placid von Tugginer studied at the conservatories in Stuttgart and Leipzig. He was appointed as musical director of Ampleforth College in Yorkshire around 1868 and he successfully composed and staged operas at the school. In 1878 he self-published some church music from the college before moving to Glasgow as a music teacher in 1880 and then on to London in 1881. He became well-known as a composer and conductor for London theatres and his piano music and numerous songs became very popular. He began publishing pieces under the pseudonym of Leonard Gautier in 1882 and subsequently ceased to use the von Tugginer name except when he returned to Ampleforth College to conduct concerts there. His most famous piano piece "Le Secret" was being performed by him as early as 1886 as an instrumental trio. This piece is often erroneously attributed to German-born French composer Jean Léonard Louis Anton Gautier (1866-1955). After major surgery in 1923 in London, Gautier retired back to Yorkshire and he died in Redcar not far from Ampleforth. John Henderson www.organcomposers.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:4288:4201:D962:C6FE:2D27:F779 (talk) 14:28, 1 January 2018 (UTC)