Philippe Besset
(4 September 1870 — 17 August 1936)
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Alternative Names/Transliterations: Philippe Joseph
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- Detailed biography: None given
Miscellaneous information
Amateur musician. Born of farmer stock in a farm called la Borie Signolle (partly destroyed by fire in 2022), in Castelmary, near Naucelles, France. Encouraged by his parents, trained as a schoolmaster in the 1890s and was appointed locally in that quality, then at the primary school of Lardeyrolles together with his wife, née Parade, in 1880, a schoolmistress. Was called up in the army in 1914 but being a family man and over 40, was transferred to the 'territorial' as it was then called, which wasn't engaged, as a rule, in active combat. Retired and died at Lapeyrouse Fossat, near Toulouse (died officially in Rodez). As a schoolmaster, Philippe Besset was instructed to discourage the use of the local 'patois' in which he was fluent, amongst his pupils. According to one of the latter (interviewed in the 1990s), he would give a bad mark, called a 'signal', to any pupil who dared revert to the occitan language in class. He instructed his elder son, Louis (father of the imslp contributor Jurabe), who could also speak patois, to occasionally act as a 'shadow teacher'.
