François Granier

François Granier (* 1717 ; † April 18, 1779 in Lyon ) was a French composer , cellist and violinist.

Live and act

François Granier spent his first years as a musician in Grenoble and Chambéry. In 1751 he moved to Lyon, where he taught composition, cello and violin and published his first compositions with the Six solos pour violoncelle (1754). In 1756 he was listed among the cellists in Lyon as "pensionnaires du Concert de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts". A fruitful collaboration began in Lyon with the dancer and choreographer Jean Georges Noverre , for whom he wrote numerous ballet pieces that were performed at the Lyon Opera between 1758 and 1760. No other ballet music for Noverre ( Les jaloux sans rival , Les caprices de Galathée , L'impromptu du sentiment ) has survived .

In 1760 Granier went to Paris, where he was a cellist at the Comédie-Italienne from 1765 to 1766. During this time he deepened his knowledge of composition with the music theorist Abbé Pierre-Joseph Roussier (1716–1792). From 1762 to 1791, 13 arrangements for two flutes of arias from French and Italian opera were published under the title Recueils d'airs . In 1766 Granier returned to Lyon, where he performed his only symphony. From 1772/73 he was a violinist in the orchestra in Lyon, where he also played the key continuo as "Accompagnateur du concert".

Noverre said of Granier: "This music is from Herr Grannier, who plays the grand piano in the Lyon Concerto; and I must do him the due justice here by assuring that there are few musicians who are so capable of theirs To arrange compositions so appropriately for every genre of ballet, and to set in motion the genius of a man born for insight and feeling. " (Noverre: Letters on the Art of Dance , Fourteenth Letter, p. 298).

A relationship with the composer Louis Granier (1740–1800) has not been proven.

Works (selection)

The melodies of Garnier's ballet music are mostly arrangements of opera arias, which enjoyed great popularity. They are based primarily on compositions by popular contemporaries such as André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry , Egidio Duni , Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny or François-André Danican Philidor .

• La Toilette de Vénus (Choreography: J.-G. Noverre), Lyon 1757
• L'Impromptu du sentiment (Choreography: J.-G. Noverre), Lyon 1758
• La Mort d'Ajax (Choreography: J.-G. Noverre), Lyon 1758
• L'Amour corsaire ou l'Embarquement pour Cythère , Lyon, 1758
• Jalousies ou Les fêtes du sérail Lyon, 1758
• Les jaloux sans rival (authorship not assured)
• Les caprices de Galathée

• symphony
• Six solos pour le violoncelle op.1 (Lyon, undated by Mme. Bretonne; Paris, 1754)

literature

• Noverre, Jean-Georges: Letters on the art of dance and on ballets, from Mr. Noverre. Translated from the French , Hamburg / Bremen 1769, p. 269; Letter output online
• Vallas, Léon: Un siècle de musique et de théâtre à Lyon, 1688–1789 , Lyons: Chez P. Masson, 1932.