Jean-François Lesueur

Jean-François Lesueur is a type-setter French, born in Plessiel, hamlet of Drucat close to Abbeville, the February 15th 1760 and died in Paris the October 6th 1837.

Biography

Great nephew of the famous painter Eustace Lesueur, Jean-François Lesueur is resulting from famous and former family from Picardy. Child of chorus to collegial of Abbeville, then with the cathedral of Amiens, Lesueur makes his studies with the college of Amiens. In 1778, it is named choirmaster of the cathedral of Sées, then comes to Paris to study the harmony near the abbot Roze, choirmaster of theInnocent ones. It is named choirmaster to the cathedral of Dijon (1779), then Mans (1782), then in Saint Martin's day of Tours (1783) before succeeding the Roze abbot Saint-Innocent in Paris. In 1786, it is received after contest at the musical position of director of Notre-Dame de Paris.

For the feast of the Assumption, it with the idea to add the orchestra to its music and gains a very great success. It starts again for the Easter, of Pentecost, and Christmas, attracting each time such a crowd that one is not long in calling the Notre-Dame cathedral the “ opera of the gueux ”, but causes the controversy in the ecclesiastical and musical world. He retorts with the polemic in a booklet entitled Exposé of a music imitative and particular to each solemnity (1787). The chapter finally decides to reduce the budget of the music what constrained Lesueur to be given up the important orchestral masses that it affectionate and leads it to resign in 1788. He travels to London then, of 1788 with 1792, cabin in the canon Bochard de Champigny.

He returns to Paris in 1792 and successfully gives three operas to the Feydeau theater: the Cave or the Repentance (1793), Paul and Virginia or Triumph of the virtue (1794), Télémaque in the island of Calypso or Triumph of wisdom (1796).

Named professor of the School of the National guard on November 21st 1793, it is elected, in 1795, Member of the Commission of the studies and is named Inspecteur with the Academy, lately founded. With Etienne Nicolas Méhul, Honore Langlé, François-Joseph Gossec and Charles Simon Catel, it writes the elementary Principes of the Music and the Musical theories of the Academy . Not managing to make accept its operas Ossian or the Bards and the death of Adam , to which the Opera prefers the Sémiramis of Catel, Lesueur publishes a violent one lampoon, Projet of a general plan of the musical instruction in France , in which it attacks the Academy, its methods and its director. This load is worth its revocation to him on September 23rd 1802.

Deprived of its salaries, Lesueur is almost reduced to misery when in 1804, Bonaparte names it choirmaster of Tileries, to replace Giovanni Paisiello. It then gives its most famous work, Ossian or the Bards , which gains an immense success with the Opera and becomes the preferred opera of the Emperor, who grants to the type-setter the cross of knight of the Légion of honor. Lesuor composes then the triumphal Marche of the crowning of Napoleon and, on this occasion, directs to Notre-Dame a mass of Paisiello and a Cheer of the Roze abbot. In 1813, it is named member of the Académie of the Art schools to replace André Grétry.

With the Restoration, it is named type-setter of the vault of the court and leader of the Opera. January 1st 1818, it is in charge of the class of composition to the Academy where it has like pupils Hector Berlioz, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, Louis Désiré Besozzi and Antoine François Marmontel.

A public school of the Town of AMIENS bears its name, it is located street DUPUIS.

Lyric works

In its lyric works, Emile Vuillermoz, “ Lesueur notes seeks new scenic effects, requires complicated decorations, a considerable figuration, seizing accessories, of the drawn up animals, and spends a disconcerting scholarship in the field of traditional antiquity and that of a more or less conjectural exoticism. It is haunted by the imposing presentations and the exceptional instrumentations. ” It announces thus, in a still traditional form, the romantic grand opera, as the tests of exoticism of the tragedies of Lemierre announce the romantic drama.

the Cave , drama lyric in 3 acts, booklet of Paul Dercy according to the History of Gil Blas de Santillane of Alain-Rene Lesage, represented with the Theater Feydeau on February 16th 1793
Paul and Virginia or Triumph of the virtue , lyric drama in 3 acts, booklet of Alphonse of the Leave Dubreuil according to Jacques-Henri Bernardin of Saint-Pierre, represented with the Theater Feydeau on January 13rd 1794
Télémaque in the island of Calypso or the Triumph of wisdom , booklet of Paul Dercy, represented with the Theater Feydeau on May 11th 1796
Ossian or the Bards , opera in 5 acts, booklet of Paul Dercy and Jacques-Marie Deschamps, represented with the imperial Academy of Music on July 10th 1804
the Inauguration of the Temple of the Victoire , interlude, booklet of Pierre Baour-Lormian, represented with the Opera of Paris on January 2nd 1807
Triumph of Trajan , lyric tragedy in 3 acts, booklet of Joseph-Alphonse Esménard, represented with the Opera of Paris on October 23rd 1807
the Death of Adam and its apotheosis , religious lyric tragedy in 3 acts, booklet of Nicolas-François Guillard according to Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, represented with the Opera of Paris on March 21st 1809
Alexandre in Babylon , opera in 3 acts, booklet of Pierre Baour-Lormian, 1814 - 1825, not represented

Random links: