In addition to premiering oboe works by prominent French composers of the 19th century, including Émile Paladilhe, Charles-Édouard Lefebvre, Clémence de Grandval, and Camille Saint-Saëns, among others, Gillet was the teacher of Fernand Gillet and Marcel Tabuteau at the Paris Conservatory, helped develop the F. Lorée brand of oboe, and composed a number of études that are still used today.

[2] In addition to orchestra and teaching positions, Gillet was a founding member of the Société de Musique de Chambre pour Instruments à Vent (Chamber Music Society for Wind Instruments) with Paul Taffanel, Charles-Paul Turban, and Camille Saint-Saëns which premiered works by Charles Gounod, Lefebvre, Saint-Saëns, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

[1] Gillet was well respected in 19th Century France, with his nephew Fernand later stating that his sound, technique and reed making were "the envy of all".

Gillet is credited with introducing vibrato at the Paris Conservatory as well as teaching students to warm up by playing three chromatic scales in thirds in any given practice session.

[1] In 1906, Lorée's son, Lucien, collaborated with Gillet to create the "conservatory plateau system" oboe,[6] a style that is universally in use today.

[1] I have tried to make the reading of [the studies] as arduous as possible in order to prepare you for all the surprises I have found in the orchestra and in certain sight-reading pieces at examinations and contests, and I have taken particular care to include numerous and very difficult passages and articulations, as well as certain high and low trills…I hope that it will make you familiar with every difficulty of your instrument; I shall be amply rewarded for my trouble if it is conducive to your progress and if it is of material help in developing your budding talent and in perfecting you in the very difficult art of the oboe.