Louis-Désiré Besozzi (3 April 1814 – 11 November 1879) was a French pianist, organist and composer. Bezozzi, the fourth generation of this traditional family of wind instrument musicians, composed mainly piano and choral works as well as a four-volume work with exercises for choral singing.

Biography

Born in

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

, Louis Besozzi belonged a family of artists from Italy, many of them with a reputation of being instrumental in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. His great-great grandfather

Giuseppe Besozzi Giuseppe Besozzi (born 1686 in Milan – died 2 December 1760 in Naples) was an Italian oboist. In the eighteenth century the Besozzi family produced several important oboists who worked in Turin, Naples, London, Paris and Dresden. Giuseppe's ...

was an oboist in

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...

,. his great-grandfather Gaetano Besozzi oboist at the court of

and later in the chapel of Versailles, his grandfather

Girolamo Besozzi Girolamo Besozzi (1745 or 1750 in Naples – 1788 in Paris) was an Italian composer and oboist and member of a renowned family of wind players. Son of composer Gaetano Besozzi and nephew of Antonio Besozzi, he became oboist in the court orchestra ...

oboist in the service of the King of France and his father

Henri Besozzi Henri Besozzi (born 1775 in Paris – d. ?) was an Italian flutist The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. How ...

flutist at the

Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...

. He entered 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 ...

on 18 July 1825 as a pupil of

Auguste Barbereau Mathurin Auguste Balthasar Barbereau (14 November 1799 – 14 July 1879) was a French composer and music theorist. Barberau was born in Paris. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1810 and received numerous prizes. He was awarded with the Pri ...

(piano) and

Jean-François Lesueur Jean-François is a French given name. Notable people bearing the given name include: * Jean-François Carenco (born 1952), French politician * Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), French Egyptologist * Jean-François Clervoy (born 1958), Fr ...

(composition)... From 1831 he worked at the Conservatory as successor of Ferdinand Gasse in solfège and later as piano teacher at the ''École de musique classique et religieuse'' of

Louis Niedermeyer Abraham Louis Niedermeyer (27 April 180214 March 1861) was a Swiss and naturalized French composer. He chiefly wrote church music and a few operas. He also taught music and took over the École Choron, renamed École Niedermeyer de Paris, a scho ...

, where he was succeeded by

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...

in 1865. Many times a prize winner at the Conservatory, he won the 1837

Grand 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 ...

and went on to study at the

French Academy in Rome The French Academy in Rome (french: Académie de France à Rome) is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill) in Rome, Italy. History The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in 1 ...

, where he met

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...

Charles Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

Dominique Papety Dominique Louis Féréol Papety (12 August 1815 – 19 September 1849) was a French painter. He is best known for his canvases and drawings on Greek themes, both Classical and contemporary, and is considered an early member of the Neo-Grec m ...

and others. Later he devoted his life to teaching popular music and the development of orfeónic societies, for which he wrote his ''Solfèges, des exercices et des méthodes d'apprentissage''. In 1852, Besozzi succeeded

Louis Braille Louis Braille (; ; 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system, named braille after him, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virtua ...

on the Cavaillé-Coll organ, built in 1845 in the Church of St. Vincent de Paul. He had attended the inaugural ceremony for this great organ on 26 January 1852, but his career as organist remained unsuccessful. After several candidates, Johann Peter Cavallo was selected. Besozzi died in Paris.

Selected works

*''12 Études caractéristiques'', Op. 19 *''L'Hymne du Matin''

References

;Attribution *''This article is based on the translation of the corresponding article of the German Wikipedia. A list of contributors can be found there at the''

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

''section.''

External links

* 1814 births 1879 deaths 19th-century classical composers 19th-century conductors (music) 19th-century French composers Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris Conservatoire de Paris alumni French choral conductors French male classical composers French male conductors (music) French Romantic composers People from Versailles Prix de Rome for composition Pupils of Jean-François Le Sueur {{france-composer-stub