Simon Le Duc, more commonly Leduc (

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. Si ...

, 15 January 1742 22 January 1777), was a French violinist, soloist at the

Concert Spirituel The Concert Spirituel ( en, Spiritual Concert) 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 of the same name occurred in Paris, Vienna, Londo ...

, music publisher and composer. His younger brother, Pierre Le Duc (1755–1818), was also a violinist. Leduc was a pupil of the famous violinist and professor at the Paris Conservatoire,

Pierre Gaviniès Pierre Gaviniès (11 May 1728 – 8 September 1800) was a French violinist, pedagogue and composer. Life Born in Bordeaux as the son of a luthier, Gaviniès was taken to Paris by his father in 1734. At age 13, he made his debut at the Concert Spi ...

. He later became director of the Concerts Spirituel, with Gaviniès and

François-Joseph Gossec François-Joseph Gossec (17 January 1734 – 16 February 1829) was a French composer of operas, string quartets, symphonies, and choral works. Life and work The son of a small farmer, Gossec was born at the village of Vergnies, then a French exc ...

During the child prodigy

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

's first tour of Europe in 1763–64, Wolfgang and his father Leopold Mozart had a chance to hear Leduc play. Leopold, an authority on violin performance who had published a treatise on violin playing in 1756 which is still read today, praised Leduc in his travel diary: "He plays well." Leduc also composed many pieces for violin, including at least two sets of violin sonatas (published as opuses 1 and 4), three violin concertos, and some chamber music. In his survey of music of the galant period,

Robert Gjerdingen Robert O. Gjerdingen is a scholar of music theory and music perception, and is an emeritus professor at Northwestern University. His most influential work focuses on the application of ideas from cognitive science, especially theories about sc ...

notes strong similarities between Leduc's style and that of his Neapolitan contemporaries, especially Cimarosa. Gjerdingen writes, "Leduc wrote highly refined music for small aristocratic gatherings in chambers and salons. The fluency and perfection of his style was matched by few others", and he argues that Leduc's music was in the "mainstream" of eighteenth-century ''galant'' style, though it is mostly forgotten today.Gjerdingen 2007, p. 289

Works, editions and recordings

* ''The complete symphonic works.'' La Stagione dir. Michael Schneider, CPO

References

External links

* 1742 births 1777 deaths Musicians from Paris 18th-century French composers 18th-century French male classical violinists French male composers French music publishers (people) {{France-composer-stub