Etienne nicolas mehul biography template

He was known as "the most important opera composer in France during the Revolution ". His first music lessons came from a blind local organist. When he showed promise, he was sent to study with a German musician and organist, Wilhelm Hanser [ de ] , at the monastery of Lavaldieu, a few miles from Givet. He also arranged airs from popular operas and by the late s he had begun to think about an operatic career for himself.

Its premiere in was an immense success and marked the composer out as a new talent. He also held a post as one of the five inspectors of the Conservatoire de Paris. The failure of his opera Les amazones in was a severe blow and virtually ended his career as a composer for the theatre. However, the composer was now seriously ill with tuberculosis and he died on 18 October He played a major role in his nephew's musical education and career; counting him among his pupils at the Conservatoire de Paris.

He also wrote new recitatives for his opera Stratonice in for a revival of that work in Paris. But he pushed music in a more Romantic direction, showing an increased use of dissonance and an interest in psychological states such as anger and jealousy, thus foreshadowing later Romantic composers such as Weber and Berlioz. As his admirer Berlioz wrote:.

He was convinced that musical expressiveness is a lovely flower, delicate and rare, of exquisite fragrance, which does not bloom without culture, and which a breath can wither; that it does not dwell in melody alone, but that everything concurs either to create or destroy it — melody, harmony, modulation, rhythm, instrumentation, the choice of deep or high registers for the voices or instruments, a quick or slow tempo, and the several degrees of volume in the sound emitted.

Étienne-Nicolas Méhul was a composer

For example, in Uthal , an opera set in the Highlands of Scotland , he eliminated violins from the orchestra, replacing them with the darker sounds of violas in order to add local colour. Sir Thomas Beecham frequently programmed this piece to showcase the Royal Philharmonic horn section. Elizabeth Bartlet calls it "Mehul's best work of the decade and a highpoint of Revolutionary opera".