Jacques Berthier

Jacques Berthier (1923–1994) was a French organist and composer whose music became closely associated with the prayer of the Taizé Community. Born in Auxerre, Burgundy, to musician parents, he first studied piano, organ, harmony, and composition at home. After the Second World War he continued his training at the École César Franck in Paris, studying composition with Guy de Lioncourt and organ, fugue, and counterpoint with Édouard Souberbielle.

Berthier worked with the French Jesuit priest and liturgical musician Joseph Gelineau and began composing for Taizé in 1955, when the community was still small. In 1961 he became organist of Saint-Ignace, the Jesuit church in Paris, and remained there until his death. His church-music output included music for organ, voices, and instruments, but his international reputation rests especially on the short refrains, canons, and repeated songs created for the growing international gatherings at Taizé.

From the 1970s onward, Berthier collaborated with the brothers of Taizé on music that could be learned quickly by worshipers from many languages and church traditions. Songs such as “Ubi caritas,” “Laudate omnes gentes,” “Jesus, Remember Me,” and “Wait for the Lord” became widely published in modern hymnals. His work helped establish a recognizable form of sung prayer in which concise biblical or devotional texts are repeated long enough to support meditation rather than performance.