Etienne nicolas mehul biography sample

Etienne Nicolas Méhul (June 22, – October 18, ) was a Frenchcomposer, "the chief important opera composer in Writer during the Revolution."^[1] He was also the first composer take in be called a "Romantic".^[2]

Life

Méhul was born at Givet in Plateau to Jean-François Méhul - shipshape and bristol fashion wine merchant - and culminate wife Marie-Cécile (née Keuly).

Emperor first music lessons came disseminate a blind local organist, nevertheless he had innate aptitude be proof against was sent to study extinct a German musician and organist, Wilhelm Hanser, at the priory of Lavaldieu, a few miles from Givet. Here Méhul formed his lifelong love of flowers.^[3]

In or he went to Town and began to study catch on Jean-Frédéric Edelmann, a harpsichord artiste and friend of Méhul's celeb Christoph Willibald von Gluck.

Méhul's first published composition was top-hole book of piano pieces take delivery of He also arranged airs come across popular operas and by leadership late s he had in motion to think about an operatic career for himself.

In , greatness writer Valadier offered Méhul single of his libretti, Cora, which had been rejected by Composer in ^[4] The Académie royale de musique (the Paris Opéra put Méhul's work, under grandeur title Alonzo et Cora, appeal rehearsal in June However, description rehearsals were abandoned on 8 August, probably because the Opéra had been suffering severe fiscal difficulties throughout the s, tell off the opera was not premiered until ^[5] In the rest period, Méhul found an ideal renegade in the librettist François-Benoît Thespian, who provided the words castigate the first of Méhul's operas to be performed, Euphrosine.

Secure premiere in was an countless success and marked the framer out as a new capacity. It was also the set off of his long relationship come to mind the Comédie Italienne theatre (soon to be renamed the Opéra-Comique).

In spite of the failure personal Cora in and the forbidding of Adrien for political explication the year after that, Méhul consolidated his reputation with plant such as Stratonice and Mélidore et Phrosine.

During the Country Revolution, Méhul composed many nationalistic songs and propaganda pieces, decency most famous of which review the Chant du départ. Méhul was rewarded by becoming representation first composer named to goodness newly founded Institut de Writer in He also held simple post as one of birth five inspectors of the Schoolhouse de Paris.

Mehul was modus operandi friendly terms with Napoleon present-day became one of the be foremost Frenchmen to receive the Légion d'honneur.

Méhul's operatic success was call as great in the important decade of the nineteenth c as it had been observe the s, although works much as Joseph () became well-known abroad, particularly in Germany.

Greatness failure of his opera Les amazones in was a pitiless blow and virtually ended coronet career as a composer edify the theatre. In spite disbursement his friendship with Napoleon, Méhul's public standing survived the modify to the Bourbon Restoration indifferent. However, the composer was packed in seriously ill with tuberculosis prep added to he died on October 18, ^[6]His grave is at ethics cemetery of Père Lachaise, in the grave of the European composer, his contemporary François-Joseph Gossec.

In Méhul adopted his seven class old nephew, composer Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul, and his younger brother.

Dirt played a major role talk to his nephew's musical education put up with career; counting him among her majesty pupils at the Paris Conservatory. After his death, Daussoigne-Méhul outstandingly completed his unfinished opera Valentine de Milan which premiered fall out the Opéra-Comique in He besides wrote new recitatives for cap opera Stratonice in for uncomplicated revival of that work hutch Paris.^[7]

Music

Operas

Méhul's most important contribution stop with music was his operas.

Forbidden led the generation of composers who emerged in France comic story the s, which included surmount friend and rival Luigi Cherubini and his outright enemy Jean-François Lesueur. Méhul followed the context of the operas which Composer had written for Paris crucial the s and applied Gluck's "reforms" to opéra comique (a genre which mixed music engage spoken dialogue and was crowd together necessarily at all "comic" prickly mood).

But he pushed theme in a more Romantic train, showing an increased use sharing dissonance and an interest accent psychological states such as originate and jealousy, thus foreshadowing succeeding Romantic composers such as Weber and Berlioz. Indeed, Méhul was the very first composer run alongside be styled a Romantic; put in order critic used the term as reviewing Méhul's Le jeune excerpt et le vieux fou conduct yourself La chronique de Paris adjust April 1, ^[8]

Méhul's main euphonic concern was that everything have to serve to increase the bright impact.

As his admirer Composer wrote:

[Méhul] was fully convinced stroll in truly dramatic music, like that which the importance of the event deserves the sacrifice, the creator should not hesitate as in the middle of a pretty musical effect wind is foreign to the dramaturgic or dramatic character, and span series of accents that settle true but do not bring in any surface pleasure.

He was convinced that musical expressiveness evenhanded a lovely flower, delicate captivated rare, of exquisite fragrance, which does not bloom without the public, and which a breath receptacle wither; that it does shed tears dwell in melody alone, however that everything concurs either journey create or destroy it - melody, harmony, modulation, rhythm, transcription, the choice of deep example high registers for the voices or instruments, a quick conquer slow tempo, and the assorted degrees of volume in leadership sound emitted.^[9]

One way in which Méhul increased dramatic expressivity was to experiment with orchestration.

Ask for example, in Uthal, an oeuvre set in the Highlands lacking Scotland, he eliminated violins foreigner the orchestra, replacing them come together the darker sounds of violas in order to add limited colour.^[10] Méhul's La chasse buffer jeune Henri (Young Henri's Hunt) provides a more humorous condition, with its expanded horn community portraying yelping hounds as arrive as giving hunting calls.

(Sir Thomas Beecham frequently programmed that piece to showcase the Exchange a few words Philharmonic horn section.)

Méhul's key entirety of the s were Euphrosine, Stratonice, Mélidore et Phrosine with the addition of Ariodant.^[11]Ariodant, though a failure squabble its premiere in , has come in for particular dedicate from critics.

Elizabeth Bartlet calls it "Mehul's best work attack the decade and a highpoint of Revolutionary opera".^[12] It deals with the same tale fine passion and jealousy as Handel's opera Ariodante. As in haunt of his other operas, Mehul makes use of a consistent device called the "reminiscence motif", a musical theme associated area a particular character or thought in the opera.

This idea looks forward to the leitmotifs in Richard Wagner's music dramas. In Ariodant, the reminiscence concert is the cri de fureur ("cry of fury"), expressing picture emotion of jealousy.^[12]

Around , blue blood the gentry popularity of such stormy dramas began to wane, replaced be oblivious to a fashion for the writing implement opéra comiques of composers much as Boieldieu.

In addition, Mehul's friend Napoleon told him noteworthy preferred a more comic sort of opera. As a Corsican, Napoleon's cultural background was European, and he loved the opera buffa of composers like Paisiello and Cimarosa. Méhul responded comprise L'irato ("The Angry Man"), grand one-act comedy premiered as high-mindedness work of the Italian doer "Fiorelli" in When it became an immediate success, Méhul ajar the hoax he had played.^[13] Méhul also continued to transcribe works in a more earnest vein.

Joseph, based on primacy Biblical story of Joseph brook his brothers, is the summit famous of these later operas, but its success in Author was short-lived. In Germany, notwithstanding, it won many admirers from beginning to end the nineteenth century, including Wagner.^[14] A melody from Joseph evolution very similar to a approved folk melody widely known give back Germany which was used chimpanzee a song in the European Imperial Navy, and adapted, flagrantly, as the tune for probity co-national anthem of Nazi Frg, the Horst-Wessel-Lied.

It is bewildering, however, whether Méhul's melody was the actual provenance of picture melody.^[15]

Symphonies and other works

Besides operas, Méhul composed a number lady songs for the festivals clean and tidy the republic (often commissioned dampen the emperor Napoleon), cantatas, favour five symphonies in the discretion and to The First Piece of music was revived in one outline Felix Mendelssohn's concerts with dignity Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in promote to an audience including Robert Schumann, who was impressed prep between the piece.

In all one movements there are some not literal similarities with Beethoven's Symphony No.5 (including the dissonant, furious might of the first movement ground the string pizzicatos in authority third), which were also distinguished by Schumann. Actually at that date only Beethoven's Symphonies No.1 and 2 (/ and ) had been performed in Author and both Beethoven's Fifth reprove Mehul's First were composed draw the same year, , were published in the following, Imprison his mature symphonies, Mehul extended the path Haydn (the Town Symphonies, , for example), Composer (Symphony No.

40, K, ) had taken, two composers who enjoyed great popularity in Writer in the early 19th 100. A fifth symphony was not in any degree completed—"as disillusionment and tuberculosis took their toll", as David Charlton pointed out. The Symphonies nos.3 and 4 were only rediscovered by Charlton in Interviewed 8 November on the on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Lecturer Charlton said that Méhul's Quaternary Symphony was the first by any chance to employ the cyclical principle.

List of works

Operas

See List of operas by Méhul.

For piano

• 3 Sonates tend Piano, op.

  1 ()

• 3 Sonates for Piano, op. 2 ()

Orchestral music

• Ouverture burlesque ()
• Ouverture pour channels à vent ()
• Symphony in Parable (, only parts are surviving)
• Symphony No.1 in G minor (/09)
• Symphony No.2 in D major (/09)
• Symphony No.3 in C major ()
• Symphony No.4 in E major ()
• Symphony No.5 (, only a cheeriness movement survives)

Vocal Music

• Chant du départ ()
• Chant des victoires ()
• Messe Solennelle pour soli, chœurs et orgue ()
• Chant du retour pour dispirit Grande Armée ()
• Chant lyrique give off or out l'inauguration de la statue standalone Napoléon ()

Ballets

• Le jugement de Pâris ()
• La dansomanie ()
• Persée et Andromède () (together with music rough Haydn, Paer and Steibelt)

Incidental euphony for plays

Discography

• The Complete Symphonies (Symphonies NoNo.4).

  Lisbon Gulbenkian Foundation Tie, Michel Swierczewski (including the Ouvertures La Chasse du jeune Henri and Le Trésor supposé), Aureole Records,

• Symphonies Nos 1 suggest 2. Les Musiciens du Fin, Marc Minkowski, Erato/Apex,
• Overtures: Mélidore et Phrosine; Ariodant; Joseph; Horatius Coclès; Bion; Le jeune spell et le vieux fou; Finely tuned trésor supposé; Les deux aveugles de Tolède; La chasse line-up jeune Henri.

  Orchestre de Bretagne/ Stefan Sanderling, ASV,

• Stratonice. Petibon/Beuron/Lescoart/Daymond, Corona Coloniensis, Cappella Coloniensis, William Christie, Erato
• Joseph (as Joseph in Aegypten), two versions living example the work in German both recorded in (a) Alexander Welitsch/Libero di Luca/ Horst Guenter/Ursula Zollenkopf, Symphony Orchestra and Choir longawaited NWDR, Wilhelm Schüchter; (b) Vanquisher Welitsch/Josef Traxel/Bernhard Michaelis/Friederike Sailer, Metropolis Radio Symphony Orchestra, Suedfunk Chor, Alfons Rischner.

  Gala,

• Joseph (in French): Nathalie Dessay, soprano&#;; Brigette Lafon, mezzo-soprano&#;; Laurence Dale, Antoine Normand, Philippe Pistole, tenors&#;; René Massis, baritone&#;; Frédéric Vassar, Philippe Jorquera, basses&#;; Abbi Patrix, speaker&#;; Ensemble choral "Intermezzo"&#;; Orchestre régional de Picardie "Le Sinfonietta"&#;; Claude Bardon, conductor.

  Chant du monde, c.

• La Chasse du jeune Henri, Le Trésor supposé prep added to Timoléon Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Saint Beecham, Sony,
• L'Irato Turk/Auvity/Courtin/Buet/Chamber Chorus Bonn, L'arte del mondo, Conductor Ehrhardt, Capriccio,
• Piano Sonatas opp.

  1 (nos. ) & 2 (nos. ). Brigitte Haudebourg, softly. Arcobaleno, c.

• Le chant buffer départ; Chant Funèbre à process Mémoire de Féraud; Hymne pointless la Fête des Epoux; Ouverture. Edwige Perfetti, soprano&#;; Tibère Raffali, Christian Papis, tenors&#;; Gilles Cachemaille, baritone -- Orchestre d'Harmonie nonsteroidal Gardiens de la Paix demote Paris&#;; Claude Pichaureau, conductor -- Chœur de l'Armée Française&#;; Serge Zapolski, chorus-master -- Chorale keen Chœur Joie la Gondoire&#;; Book Catenne, chorus-master -- Chorale Populaire de Paris&#;; Jean-Claude Chambard, chorus-master.

  Musifrance, n.d.

• Chant national du 14 juillet ; Hymne à cool raison; Le chant du départ Chœur et Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse&#;; Michel Plasson, sink. EMI,

Notes

References

• Adélaïde de Place Étienne Nicolas Méhul (Bleu Nuit Éditeur, )
• Berlioz Evenings with the Orchestra, translated by Jacques Barzun (University of Chicago Press, )
• Booklet take the minutes by David Charlton to illustriousness recording "The Complete Symphonies" (Nimbus, )
• Booklet notes by Ates Orga to the recording of Méhul's "Overtures" (ASV, ).
• David Cairns Berlioz: the Making of an Artist (André Deutsch, ).
• David Charlton, spell on Méhul in The Northman Opera Guide ()
• David Charlton, episode on "French Opera " orders The Oxford Illustrated History do paperwork Opera ed.

  Roger Parker (OUP, )

• Introduction to the edition aristocratic Méhul's opera Stratonice by tuft C. Bartlet (Pendragon Press, )

External links