Jean-Charles Delioux (de) Savignac (17 April 1825 – 12 November 1915) was a French composer, a pupil of Halévy and potentially Chopin, who was quite popular in the Paris salons of the nineteenth century.

Life

Charles Delioux was born in the Breton town of

Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginn ...

Morbihan Morbihan ( , ; br, Mor-Bihan ) is a department in the administrative region of Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan (''small sea'' in Breton), the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastli ...

. He received his early musical education from his father, a local naval commissioner, and appeared as a child prodigy on the piano in Lorient and as early as 1839 at the Tuileries before King

Louis Philippe Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary War ...

. During his early years in Paris, he was a pupil of Pierre Zimmerman. In 1845, he began his studies at the

Paris Conservatory The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

with

Fromental Halévy Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy (; 27 May 179917 March 1862), was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera '' La Juive''. Early career Halévy was born in Paris, son of the cantor ...

(composition) and Auguste Barbereau (harmony) and won an award ("1er Accessit") in the same year for counterpoint and fugue. There are also hints that he studied privately with

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

as witnessed by his pupil Victor Gilles (1884–1964). He was admitted to compete for the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in 1847, but after he failed, he never re-entered. From 1849 he established himself as piano teacher in Paris and was so much sought after that he could support his wider family, after his father had died shortly before. Among his better known pupils was

Alexis de Castillon Marie-Alexis de Castillon de Saint-Victor (13 December 1838 – 5 March 1873) was a French composer. Life and career Born in Chartres into an old aristocratic family from Languedoc, his parents initially intended him to pursue a military caree ...

. He was also quite successful as a composer, mainly for the piano, for which he published more than a hundred compositions. His taste and reputation led to becoming a jury member of competitions at the Conservatory. Delioux died in Paris.

Music

Delioux's largest work was a comic opera, ''Yvonne et Loïc'' (libretto by

Michel Carré Michel Carré (20 October 1821, Besançon – 27 June 1872, Argenteuil) was a prolific French librettist. He went to Paris in 1840 intending to become a painter but took up writing instead. He wrote verse and plays before turning to writing libre ...

), produced in 1854 at the Théâtre du Gymnase. But he excelled as a composer of virtuoso piano music, transcriptions of classics, pedagogical works, and songs. Marmontel described him thus: "Il se trouve à la fois parmi les élus du talent et parmi les préférées de la vogue. ��Ses compositions se distinguent par la franchise des idées, la netteté d'exposition, l'élégant contour des mélodies et la distinction des harmonies." ("He is both among the chosen ones of talent and among the favourites of fashion. ��His compositions are distinguished by the frankness of his ideas, the clearness of his exposition, the elegant outline of his melodies and the distinction of his harmonies.") Brown described Delioux's piano music as "brilliant and pretty, and well adapted for showy performance".Brown (1886), p. 206.

Selected compositions

Piano music

* ''Danse napolitaine'', Op. 11 (1852) * ''Valse brillante'', Op. 12 (1853) * ''Marche hongroise'', Op. 14 (1853) * ''Chanson créole. Rêverie'', Op. 18 (1853) * ''Une fête à Séville. Boléro'', Op. 23 (1854) * ''Cri de guerre. Marche caractéristique'', Op. 30 (1854) * ''Feuillet d'album'', Op. 31 (1854) * ''Chant du matin. Aubade'', Op. 35 (1855) * ''Chant du nord. Mazurka'', Op. 37 (1856) * ''Carnaval espagnol. Caprice de concert'', Op. 38 (1856) * ''Les Matelots. Scène maritime'', Op. 40 (1857) * ''3 Romances sans paroles'', vol. 1, Op. 44 (1857) * ''Le Réveil. Aubade'', Op. 53 (1858) * ''Arabesques. Caprice'', Op. 61 (1860) * ''La Fête du sacre. Grand duo dramatique'', piano 4-hands, Op. 63 (1861) * ''Bonheur passé. Rêverie variée'', Op. 70 (1861) * ''Thème varié'', Op. 77 (1866) * ''Impressions de voyage'', Op. 81 (1867) * ''Soir d'été. Idylle'', Op. 84 (1868) * ''Menuet dans le style ancien'', Op. 89 (1871) * ''Elezanza. Impromptu'', Op. 90 (1874) * ''Gavotte'', Op. 89 (1877) * ''Lamento'', Op. 101 (1884) * ''Ballade'', Op. 104 (1891) * ''Tourment'', Op. 106 (1894) * ''Kermesse'', Op. 118 (1896) * ''Echo d'Italie. Notturno'', Op. 120 (1899) * ''Impressions religieuses'', Op. 122 (1901)

References

External links

* BnF Data: https://data.bnf.fr/fr/14826592/charles_delioux/ * Free scores b
Charles Delioux
at

IMSLP The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki software ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delioux, Charles 1825 births 1915 deaths 19th-century classical composers 19th-century French composers 19th-century French male musicians Composers for piano Conservatoire de Paris alumni French male classical composers French Romantic composers Musicians from Lorient Pupils of Fromental Halévy Pupils of Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann