Louis Adam or Jean-Louis Adam (born Johann Ludwig Adam) (3 December 1758 – 8 April 1848) was a French composer, music teacher, and piano

virtuoso A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'' or , "virtuous", Late Latin ''virtuosus'', Latin ''virtus'', "virtue", "excellence" or "skill") is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as ...

.Baker, Theodore
"Adam, Louis
in '' A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', p. 3 (New York: G. Schirmer, 1905).

Life and career

Born in Muttersholtz,

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

, the son of Mathias Adam and Marie-Dorothée Meyer, Adam 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 ...

in 1775 to study piano and harpsichord with

Jean-Frédéric Edelmann Jean-Frédéric Edelmann (born Johann Friedrich Edelmann; 5 May 1749 – 17 July 1794) was a French Classical period (music), classical composer. He was born in Strasbourg to a Protestant family of Alsatian descent. After studying law and music ...

. He spent over four decades, from 1797 through 1842, as Professor of Pianoforte at the

Conservatoire de Paris 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 ...

, retiring in 1842 (at age 84), and died in the city, aged 89. As professor, he was the teacher of a number of notable students, including Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul,

Friedrich Kalkbrenner Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner (2–8 November 1785 – 10 June 1849), also known as ''Frédéric Kalkbrenner'', was a pianist, composer, piano teacher and piano manufacturer. German by birth, Kalkbrenner studied at the Conservatoire de ...

Ferdinand Hérold Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold (28 January 1791 – 19 January 1833), better known as Ferdinand Hérold (), was a French composer. He was celebrated in his lifetime for his operas, of which he composed more than twenty, but he also wrote ballet mus ...

,Brubaker, Bruce and Gottlieb, Jane (eds), ''Pianist, Scholar, Connoisseur: Essays in Honor of Jacob Lateiner'' (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 2000), p. 39, . and

Henry Lemoine Henry Lemoine (21 October 1786 – 18 May 1854) was a French music publisher, composer, and piano teacher. Life Lemoine was born in Paris, where he was a pupil of Anton Reicha, a composer and piano teacher. In 1816 he took over his father ...

. In addition to being a skilled pianist, he composed a number of piano pieces that were in vogue at the time, especially some variations on '' Le Bon roi Dagobert''. He also wrote two standard instruction books for piano: ''Méthode ou principe générale du doigté pour le forté-piano'' (1798) and ''Méthode nouvelle pour le piano'' (1802). In 1804, he published the ''Méthode de piano du Conservatoire'', an influential work, which contributed to the advancement of piano technique in Paris. Adam was married three times. His second wife was the sister of the Count de Louvois; the couple had a daughter, Sophie, later married to Colonel Genot. After his separation, Adam remarried to Élisabeth-Charlotte-Jeanne (known as Élisa) Coste, daughter of a doctor. The couple had two boys, Adolphe Charles (1803) (future popular composer, author of the ballet ''Giselle'', the comic opera ''The Postillon of Lonjumeau'', and the Christmas carol ''Midnight, Christians'') and Alphonse Hippolyte (1808).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adam, Louis 1758 births 1848 deaths 18th-century classical composers 19th-century classical composers 18th-century French male classical pianists French male composers People from Bas-Rhin 19th-century French male classical pianists