The Paris Conservatoire revolutionized music education in France. For most of the eighteenth century such education in Paris was rooted in church choir schools, but as these gradually closed as the century progressed the Ecole Royal de Chant was founded (1783), largely thanks to Gossec. This institution became the Institut National de Musique in 1793. By 1794 there were 80 ...
The reputation that Paris enjoyed for elegance and culture also attracted many foreign visitors to the city, who carried the French style to their own countries. While Italian opera was occasionally performed, French-language serious and comic opera predominated. The city’s most famous concert series was the Concert Spirituel, founded by Anne-Danican Philidor (1681–1728) in 1725. By the middle ...
The Académie Royale de Musique (now known as the Paris Académie de Musique or the Paris Opéra), has had many homes. The Académie opened in 1671, and from 1672–87 was largely controlled by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–87). In 1763, the building was destroyed by fire, as was the next building in 1781. The Opéra moved to rue de Richelieu ...
In the twentieth century, Paris regained its place as the centre of musical innovation, especially in the years either side of World War I. In the late nineteenth century, Debussy’s influential musical innovations and explicitly anti-Wagnerian stance made Paris the centre of post-Wagnerian modernity. This was confirmed in the early modern period by the arrival of Serge Diaghilev ...
(Am-brwaz’ To-mas’) 1811–96 French composer Thomas studied with Le Sueur at the Paris Conservatoire, where he became Director in 1871. After winning the 1832 Prix de Rome, he composed the first of his 20 operas, La double échelle (‘The Double Ladder’, 1837). His first successes, Le Caïd (‘The Cadi’, 1849) and Songe d’une nuit d’été (‘A Midsummer Night’s ...
(An’-to-nyen Ri-kha) 1770–1836 Czech-French composer Born in Prague, Reicha studied the violin and piano with his uncle, Joseph Reicha. He then lived in Bonn, where he became a friend of Beethoven. After striving largely in vain for operatic success, he settled in 1801 in Vienna, where he formed a close friendship with Haydn. In 1808 he went ...
(Ka-mel’ San-San) 1835–1921 French composer Saint-Saëns was the founder of the National Society for French Music (1871) and influenced the development of the French style through his immense output and through his pupil Fauré. His music epitomizes French qualities of formal elegance, clarity of texture and craftsmanship, all allied to techniques of Romanticism. He was a prodigy, beginning his ...
(Sharl Goo-no) 1818–93 French composer Gounod is best known as the composer of one of the most popular French lyric operas, Faust. His teachers at the Paris Conservatoire were the opera composers Jacques-François-Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) and Jean François Le Sueur (1760–1837) and in 1839 he won the coveted Prix de Rome. Alongside much sacred music, such as the florid ...
b. 1958 French cellist Coin studied the cello in Caen, at the Paris Conservatoire, and in Vienna with Harnoncourt. He studied the viola da gamba at the Basle Schola Cantorum, 1977–79. He played with the Vienna Concentus Musicus, Hesperion XX and the Academy of Ancient Music, 1977–83. Since 1984 he has followed a career as a ...
(Klod De’-bu-se) 1862–1918 French composer Debussy was one of the father figures of twentieth-century music, often associated with the Impressionist movement. He was not only influential on subsequent French composers such as Ravel and Messiaen, but also on other major European figures, including Stravinsky and Bartók. His early songs experimented with an intimate kind of word-setting, while ...
1862–1918, French Debussy wrote only one opera that has entered the repertoire, but there were many other compositions without which this masterpiece among masterpieces may never have come into being. His lover, the singer Marie-Blanche Vasnier, some years his elder, had deepened his understanding of literature in his early twenties, and his interest in poetry ...
(Dan-yel’ Fran-swa Es-pre’ O-bâr’) 1782–1871 French composer Auber is renowned for his operas and was the leading composer of opéras comiques in nineteenth-century France. He studied with Cherubini in Paris, writing concertos and vocal music before turning his attention to operas. His most important work is La muette de Portici (1828), one of many collaborations with the librettist Eugène Scribe ...
(A-dwär La-lo’) 1823–92 French composer After studies at the Paris Conservatoire, Lalo joined a string quartet, composing salon music and songs. In 1874, after a fallow period, he first achieved success with the Symphonie espagnole (‘Spanish Symphony’, 1874), a scintillating violin concerto whose five movements exude Spanish rhythmic zest and lyricism (he was of Spanish descent). This was ...
b. 1970 Swiss flautist Born in Geneva, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and was appointed principal flute of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 22, subsequently appearing as a soloist with major orchestras in the US, Europe and Japan. He has recorded all the instrument’s major solo and chamber repertoire and has premiered several new ...
(Âr-nest’ Sho-sôn’) 1855–99 French composer After qualifying in law, Chausson studied with Massenet and Franck at the Paris Conservatoire and absorbed Wagnerian style, attending the Bayreuth premiere of Parsifal on his honeymoon. All three influences pervade his highly polished oeuvre in all genres. Best known are his masterly Symphony in B flat (1889), his sparkling concerto for piano, violin ...
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