“All music must be singable”, this was Paul Paray’s conviction right from childhood; lulled by the oratorios directed by his father, an ivory engraver who carried out the functions of Chapel Master at the church of Le Tréport (Normandy). There, he was initiated very early into the keyboard, kettledrums, and cello. When he was nine years old, Paul was admitted to the choir school (‘Maîtrise’) of Saint-Evode in the cathedral of Rouen, where he was initiated into the art of plainchant by the Canon Adolphe Bourdon and became a brilliant pupil of the organist Jules Haëlling, playing from memory at age 14 all the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach. A Magnificat in A flat composed for the 1901 holy days bears the mark of this background and absorption. In his adolescence, he wrote his first pieces for piano and organ even as he discovered the musicians and poets of his time. Paray could sight read the sheet music of César Franck, Anton Bruckner, a...