Paul Vidal

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Paul Antoine Vidal (Toulouse, June 16, 1863 - Paris, April 9, 1931) was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.

He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris with Jules Massenet. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did. On 8 January, 1886, in Rome, Vidal and Debussy performed Franz Liszt's "Faust Symphony" at two pianos for Liszt himself, an after-dinner performance that Liszt apparently slept through. The following day they played Chabrier's two-piano "Valses romantiques" for Liszt. Vidal conducted at the Paris Opera and the Opéra-Comique and taught at the Paris Conservatoire; his pupils included Jacques Ibert and Francis Poulenc. His compositions, including the operas Eros (1892), Guernica (1895) and La Burgonde (1898), are virtually forgotten today.