Samuel David

Samuel David (born November 12, 1836 in Paris ; † October 3, 1895 ibid) was a French composer.

David studied harmony with François Bazin and composition with Jacques Fromental Halévy at the Conservatoire de Paris . At the age of thirteen he received first prize in solfège, in 1858 he won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome with the cantata Jephté after Emile Cécile .

From 1856 David was choirmaster at the Théâtre-Lyrique , in that year his operetta Peau de l'ours was also performed at Les Folies-Nouvelles . At an international choir festival in Paris, in which 6,000 singers took part, his composition Le Génie de la terre was performed in 1859 and awarded a gold medal.

After the stay in the Villa Medici in Rome (1859-60) associated with the Prix de Rome, David became a music professor at the Collège Sainte-Barbe . From 1872 he was responsible for the liturgical music in the great synagogue on Rue de la Victoire as director de la musique des temples consistoriaux . After his death, Jules Franck succeeded him in this position.

In addition to choral works, David composed four symphonies as well as numerous operettas and operas, of which only Mademoiselle Sylvia (after Narcisse Fournier ) was performed at the Opéra-Comique in 1868 during his lifetime . In 1862 his music pedagogical work L'Art de jouer en mesure was published .

Operas and operettas

• Les Chevaliers du poignard , comic opera in two acts, 1864
• Mademoiselle Sylvia , UA 1868
• Tu l'as voulu , 1869
• Le bien d'autrui , 1869
• Un caprice de Ninon , 1871
• Caprice de Ninon , 1874
• La Fée des bruyères , comic opera in three acts, 1878
• La Gageure , comic opera in three acts
• Maccabei , Italian opera in four acts
• Une Dragonnade , comic opera in one act
• L'Education d'un prince , comic opera in one act
• Absalon , comic opera in one act
• Les Changeurs , comic opera in one act