Pierre Gaviniès (11 May 1728 – 8 September 1800) was a French

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist,

pedagogue Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Life

Born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

as the son of a

luthier A luthier ( ; ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments. Etymology The word ' is originally French and comes from ''luth'', the French word for "lute". The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be ...

, Gaviniès was taken to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

by his father in 1734. At age 13, he made his debut at the

Concert Spirituel The Concert Spirituel () was one of the first public concert series in existence. The concerts began in Paris in 1725 and ended in 1790. Later, concerts or series of concerts with the same name occurred in multiple places including Paris, Vienna ...

in Les Tuileries playing a

Jean-Marie Leclair Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné (Jean-Marie Leclair the Elder) (10 May 1697 – 22 October 1764) was a French Baroque violinist and composer. He is considered to have founded the French violin school. His brothers, the lesser-known Jean-Marie ...

sonata In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...

for two violins.. Sometime around 1753 he received a prison sentence as the result of an affair with a Countess.. In 1762, he reached the peak of his career.

Giovanni Battista Viotti Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness. He was also a director of French and Italia ...

described him as the French

Tartini Giuseppe Tartini (8 April 1692 – 26 February 1770) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era born in Pirano in the Republic of Venice (now Piran, Slovenia). Tartini was a prolific composer, composing over a hundred pieces for the ...

, a singular compliment. Jean Godefroy Eckhard, Leduc L’Ainé,

Rodolphe Kreutzer Rodolphe Kreutzer (15 November 1766 – 6 January 1831) was a French violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer of forty French operas, including '' La mort d'Abel'' (1810). He is probably best known as the dedicatee of Beethoven's Violin Son ...

, and Romain de Brasseure dedicated works to him. The cellist

Martin Berteau Martin Berteau (2 February 1691 in Valenciennes – 23 January 1771 in Angers) was a French classical cellist, cello teacher, and composer. He is widely regarded as the founder of the French school of cello playing. Life Descriptions of Berteau ...

named a sonata "La Gavinies". His seminal work is the ''24 Matinées'' published in 1794, a compilation of violin studies that includes extremely complex passages with the main goal of developing bowing facility. Gaviniès taught violin at the Paris

Conservatoire A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger in ...

from 1795 until his death. One of his pupils was

Antoine-Laurent Baudron Antoine-Laurent Baudron (15 May 1742 – 1834), was a French musician and composer. Career Born in Amiens, Baudron studied in the local Jesuit college and then moved to Paris to study the violin with Pierre Gaviniès. In 1763 or 1764 he became a ...

Works

* Opus 1 - 6 sonatas for violin (1760) * ''Le Prétendu intermède'', Italian comedy in 3 acts (première in Paris on 6 November 1760) * ''Recueil d'airs à 3 parties'' for two violins, alto and basse continue (1763) * Opus 3 - 6 sonatas for violin (1764) * Opus 4 - 6 sonatas for violin (1764) * 2 suites for Christmas (1764) * 3 sonates for violin solo (including ''Le Tombeau de Gaviniès'') (1770) * Opus 5 - 6 sonates for violin (1774) * ''Les Vingt-quatre matinées'' (1794)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gavinies, Pierre 1727 births 1800 deaths 18th-century French composers French male classical violinists Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris French male composers Musicians from Bordeaux 18th-century French violinists 18th-century French male musicians