François Francœur

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

François Francœur (born September 21, 1698 in Paris , † August 5, 1787 in Paris) was a French violinist and composer .

Life

Francœur's father, Joseph Francœur, was a double bass player ( basse de violon ) with the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roy and the Paris Opéra . His older brother was the violinist and composer Louis Francœur (1692–1745, "l'aîné" , "the elder"), from whom he was distinguished in public by the addition "le cadet" ("the younger"). He received his musical training from his father. At the age of 15 he was already a violinist in the grand chœur (in the tutti) of the orchestra of the Académie royale de musique (Paris Opera). Here he met François Rebel , with whom he remained connected in a lifelong friendship and cooperation. In 1723 they both traveled to Vienna and Prague together. There they met Johann Joseph Fux , Antonio Caldara , Giuseppe Tartini and Johann Joachim Quantz and got to know their music. In 1726 they appeared in the Concert Spirituel . The Mercure de France commented : “Le Mercredy, les sieurs Rebel et Francœur, de l'Académie Royale de Musique, joüèrent une symphonie à deux violons qui fit beaucoup de plaisir” (“On Wednesday Messrs Rebel and Francœur from the Académie played Royale de Musique a symphony for two violins, which aroused great pleasure. ”).

The compositional collaboration with Rebel began in 1726 with the opera Pyrame et Thisbé and did not end until 1775 with Rebel's death. In the more than twenty joint projects, the collaboration between the two was so close that it was no longer possible to distinguish between their workloads. In 1727 Francœur compositeur de la chambre du roi (court composer) and in 1729 Knight of the Royal Order of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel . On November 15, 1730, he was accepted as the successor to Jean-Baptiste Senaillé in the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roy , like his brother Louis before (1710).

In 1730 he married Elisabeth-Adrienne Le Roy, the daughter of the famous actress Adrienne Lecouvreur . The best man and godfather of the couple's daughter was the Marquis René de Brassac (1699–1771), himself the composer of two operas and a collection of cantatas. The marriage was not a happy one; she was divorced in 1746 after a court case. Francœur's public image was marred by his involvement in the scandal surrounding the singer Marie Pélissier , who had to leave Paris in 1734 after a trial against her former lover Du Lys (or Dulys).

In 1739 Francœur became maître de musique at the opera, in 1743 together with Rebel inspecteur adjoint de l'Opéra (assistant inspector) and from February 1744, in succession to François Colin de Blamont, chief director of royal chamber music.

On April 1, 1757, Francœur took over the management of the Opéra together with Rebel . The contract ran for 30 years, but on April 1, 1767 the two resigned from office. The manifold difficulties they faced - poor discipline of the staff, a large deficit - culminated in the fire of the opera house on April 6, 1763. During this time, the Buffonist dispute fell , in which Francœur the party Jean-Philippe Rameau and the coin du roi who defended French opera against the attacks of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his attempts to prove the superiority of Italian opera.

Works

In addition to festival symphonies and violin sonatas, Francœur created 18 works for the stage, the latter mostly in collaboration with Rebel.

Fake works

  • Fritz Kreisler published a composition Sicilienne and Rigaudon under the name Francœurs , which is, however, its own composition.
  • A sonata in E major for violoncello with piano accompaniment is often played under François Francœur's name. The original of this piece, however, does not come from François, but is the 4th sonata from the second book of sonatas for violin and basso continuo (1726?) By his brother Louis Francœur. The first editor of the piece in the 19th century, Jean-Delphin Alard , got an edition largely in keeping with the original text with exposed basso continuo. On the title page of the first edition, however, he only found the composer's name "Mr Francœur le Fils aisné" ("Mr. Francœur the elder son"), which Alard assigned to the only then known Francœur because of the missing first name. In the cello version derived from this edition, the second movement, the Courante , has been replaced by a virtuoso “Allegro vivo”, which does not come from any of the Francœur brothers and is probably a forgery.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 80 f .
  2. ↑ http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9066413t/f22.image.r=louis%20francoeur.langFR first print at Gallica
personal data
SURNAME Francœur, François
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French composer and violinist
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1698
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 1787
Place of death Paris