François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis - Belgian composer

Person from Belgium

Genres: composer, Classical, 19th century, composers, romantic

About François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis (25 March 1784 – 26 March 1871) was a Belgian musicologist, composer, critic and teacher. He was one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century, and his enormous compilation of biographical data in the Biographie universelle des musiciens remains an important source of information today. His wife, Adélaïde Robert, was the daughter of the French politician Pierre-François-Joseph Robert. He was born in Mons, Hainaut, and was trained as a musician by his father, who followed the same calling. His talent for composition manifested itself at the age of seven, and at nine years old he was an organist at Sainte-Waudru, Mons. In 1800 he went to Paris and completed his studies at the Conservatory under such masters as François-Adrien Boïeldieu, Jean-Baptiste Reyand Louis-Barthélémy Pradher. In 1806 he undertook the revision of the Roman liturgical chants in the hope of discovering and establishing their original form. In this year he also began his Biographie universelle des musiciens, the most important of his works, which did not appear until 1834. In 1821 he was appointed professor at the Paris Conservatory. In 1827 he founded the Revue musicale, the first serious paper in France devoted exclusively to musical matters. Fétis remained in the French capital till 1833, when at the request of Leopold I, he became director of the conservatory of Brussels and the king’s chapelmaster.

Taken from Last.fm

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