Quick Facts
Biography
André Alphonse Toussaint Wormser (1 November 1851 – 4 November 1926) was a French banker and Romantic composer.
Life and career
André Wormser was born in Paris and studied with Antoine Marmontel and François Bazin at the Paris Conservatoire. He married Olga née Boris, and the couple had four children, Diane, Sabine, Dominique and Olivier, all featured in a 1926 portrait Madame André Wormser and her Children by Édouard Vuillard. As a very wealthy man, Wormser was able to afford a membership in the social club Cercle artistique et littéraire.
In 1872 Wormser won the Premier Prix in piano at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1875 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Clytemnestre. He is best known for the pantomime L'Enfant prodigue (1890), which was revived at the Booth Theater in New York in 1916 as the three-act play Perroit the Prodigal. He died in Paris.
Notable students include Charles Malherbe.
Works
Wormser composed choral and orchestra music, opera and works for solo instrument and voice. Selected works include:
- L'Étoile, Ballet-pantomime en deux actes (31 May 1897, chor. Joseph Hansen, Paris Opera)
- Ballada for Oboe and Piano (1909)
- Clytemnestre, cantata (1897)
- L'Enfant prodigue, pantomime (1916)
- Rêverie (Gypsy Suite) for violin and piano
- Adèle de Ponthière, opera (1887)
- Rivoli, opera (1896)