Joseph François Salomon (April 1649 – 5 March 1732) was a French composer of the

Baroque era The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including th ...

. Born in

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

, he learnt to play the

bass viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...

and the

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

, and went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to work as a musician for the royal family. He was 52 when he composed his first opera, the ''

tragédie en musique Tragédie en musique (, ''musical tragedy''), also known as tragédie lyrique (, ''lyric tragedy''), is a genre of French opera introduced by Jean-Baptiste Lully and used by his followers until the second half of the eighteenth century. Operas in t ...

'' ''Médée et Jason''.

Operas

*''

Médée et Jason ''Médée et Jason'' (''Medea and Jason'') is an opera by the French composer Joseph François Salomon, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) on 24 April 1713. It takes the form of a ''tragédie en musique'' in a prol ...

'' (1713) *'' Théonoé'' (1715)

Sources

''Le magazine de l'opéra baroque'' by Jean-Claude Brenac (in French)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Salomon, Joseph Francois 1649 births 1732 deaths Musicians from Toulon French Baroque composers French classical composers French male classical composers French opera composers Male opera composers 18th-century classical composers 18th-century French composers 18th-century French male musicians 17th-century male musicians