François-Joseph Fétis
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François-Joseph Fétis (; 25 March 1784 – 26 March 1871) was a Belgian
musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...
, critic, teacher 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 ...
. He was among the most influential music intellectuals in continental Europe. His enormous compilation of biographical data in the ''Biographie universelle des musiciens'' remains an important source of information today.


Family

Fétis was born in Mons, Hainaut, eldest son of Antoine-Joseph Fétis and Élisabeth Desprets, daughter of a noted surgeon. He had nine brothers and sisters. His father was titular organist of the noble chapter of Saint-Waltrude. His grandfather was an organ manufacturer. He was trained as a musician by his father and played at young age on the choir organ of Saint Waltrude. In October 1806 he married Adélaïde Robert, daughter of the French politician Pierre-François-Joseph Robert and Louise-Félicité de Kéralio, friend of Robespierre. They had two sons: the elder son helped his father with the editions of '' Revue Musicale'' and became member of the Royal Academy, while the younger son was a composer and professor. In 1866 his wife died, and he withdrew from the Brussels society and court. When his father died, Eduard inherited his complete library and collection of musical instruments.


Career

His talent for composition manifested itself at the age of seven, and at nine years old he was an organist at Saint Waltrude, Mons. In 1800 he went 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 ...
and completed his studies at the Conservatory under such masters as Boïeldieu, Jean-Baptiste Rey and Louis-Barthélémy Pradher. In 1806 he undertook the revision of the Roman liturgical chants in the hope of discovering and establishing their original form. In this year he also began his ''Biographie universelle des musiciens'', the most important of his works, which did not appear until 1834. In 1821 he was appointed professor at the Paris Conservatory. In 1827 he founded the '' Revue musicale'', the first serious paper in
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
devoted exclusively to musical matters. Fétis remained in the French capital till 1833, when at the request of Leopold I, he became director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and the king's chapelmaster. He also was the founder, and, until his death, the conductor of the celebrated concerts attached to the conservatory of Brussels, and he inaugurated a free series of lectures on musical history and philosophy. Fétis produced a large quantity of original compositions, from the
opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
and the
oratorio An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble. Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguisha ...
to the simple
chanson A (, ; , ) is generally any Lyrics, lyric-driven French song. The term is most commonly used in English to refer either to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval music, medieval and Renaissance music or to a specific style of ...
, including several musical hoaxes, the most famous of which is the "Lute concerto by Valentin Strobel", premiered with
Fernando Sor Fernando Sor (baptised 14 February 1778 – 10 July 1839) was a Spanish classical guitarist and composer of the Classical period (music), late Classical era and Romantic music, early Romantic era. Best known for writing solo classical guitar mu ...
as soloist. Carcassi, as well as Sor, participated in the performance. The work is attributed not to the Alsascian lutenist Valentin Strobel, but to Jean (Johann) Strobach, a member of a prominent Bohemian family of musicians. This Strobach (fl. 1650–1720) served Leopold I, and there is no evidence that Fétis's score is a hoax. The composition was published in 1698, although no copy is known to have survived, except Fétis' manuscript score, which is in the Royal Conservatory Library in Brussels. In 1856, he worked closely with Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume in writing a treatise about Antonio Stradivari (''Antoine Stradivari, luthier célèbre''). It includes detailed chapters on the history and development of the violin family, old master Italian violin makers (including the Stradivari and Guarneri families) and an analysis of the bows of François Tourte. His interest in instruments can also be gathered from his very substantial collection, which includes the oldest surviving Arab ''oud''. Fétis had the privilege to have
Niccolò Paganini Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini (; ; 27 October 178227 May 1840) was an Italian violinist and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices ...
,
Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...
, and
Hector Berlioz Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 â€“ 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the ''Symphonie fantastique'' and ''Harold en Italie, Harold in Italy'' ...
as contemporaries and to work with the violin maker and dealer, Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Fétis's work provides a unique window into the times and as such is a particularly valuable reference for the modern researcher, dealer and player. More important perhaps than his compositions are his writings on music. They are partly historical, such as the ''Curiosités historiques de la musique'' (Paris, 1850), and the ''Histoire générale de la musique'' (Paris, 1869—1876); and partly theoretical, such as the ''Méthode des méthodes de piano'' (Paris, 1840), written in conjunction with Moscheles. While Fétis's critical opinions of contemporary music may seem conservative, his musicological work was ground-breaking, and unusual for the 19th century in attempting to avoid an ethnocentric and present-centered viewpoint. Unlike many others at the time, he did not see music history as a continuum of increasing excellence, moving towards a goal, but rather as something which was continually ''changing'', neither becoming better nor worse, but continually adapting to new conditions. He believed that all cultures and times created art and music which were appropriate to their times and conditions; and he began a close study of
Renaissance music Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century ''ars nova'', the mus ...
as well as European folk music and music of non-European cultures. Thus Fétis built the foundation for what would later be termed
comparative musicology Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...
. Fétis died in
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
. His valuable library was purchased by the Belgian government and presented to the Royal Library. His historical works, despite many inaccuracies, remain of great value for historians. His pupils included Luigi Agnesi, Jean-Delphin Alard, Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Friedrich Berr, Louise Bertin, William Cusins, Julius Eichberg, Ferdinand Hérold, Frantz Jehin-Prume, Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, Adolphe Samuel, Charles-Marie Widor, Hippolyte André Jean Baptiste Chélard, Émile Bienaimé, Théodore Labarre, Louis van Waefelghem, Federico Consolo, , , , , , and .


Fétis and Berlioz

Some of his criticisms of contemporary composers have become quite famous, as well as the responses that they engendered. He said of Berlioz, "...what Monsieur Berlioz composes is not part of that art which we distinguish as music, and I am completely certain that he lacks the most basic capability in this art." In the '' Revue musicale'' issue of 1 February 1835 he wrote of the '' Symphonie Fantastique'': Berlioz, who had proof-read Fétis' editions of the first eight
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
symphonies for the publisher Troupenas, commented that Troupenas did in fact remove Fétis' editorial marks, but Berlioz was still unsatisfied. He went on to criticize Fétis in one of the monologues of '' Lélio, ou le Retour à la vie'', the 1832 sequel to ''Symphonie Fantastique'': Not one to be outdone, Fétis may have had the last word in this debate. In the 1845 edition of his treatise ''La musique mise à la porte de tout le monde'', he describes the word "fantastique" saying that "this word has even slid into music. ‘Fantastique' music is composed of instrumental effects with no melodic line and incorrect harmony."


Theoretical work

Although known primarily for his contributions to musicology and criticism, Fétis had effects on the realm of music theory as well. In 1841 he put together the first history of harmonic theory, his ''Esquisse de l'histoire de l'harmonie''. Assembled from individual articles that Fétis published in the '' Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris'' around 1840, the book predates Hugo Riemann's more well known ''Geschichte der Musiktheorie'' by fifty years. The ''Esquisse'', as the title implies, is a general outline rather than an exhaustive study. Fétis is attempting to show the "facts, errors, and truths" of previous theories and theorists, as he interprets them, in order to provide a solid grounding for other scholars and to prevent subsequent interpretive mistakes. Fétis' main theoretical work and the culmination of his conceptual frameworks of tonality and harmony is the ''Traité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l'harmonie'' of 1844. This book has influenced later theorists and composers including
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
, Ernst Kurth, and
Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...
. In the ''Musik-Lexicon'' of 1882, Hugo Riemann states that "to étis'meditations we are indebted for the modern concept of tonality…he found himself emancipated from the spirit of a particular age, and able to render justice to all the various styles of music." Though some other theorists, most notably Matthew Shirlaw, have had decidedly negative views, Riemann's assessment captures the two key features of Fétis' text. Though he did not coin the term "tonality," Fétis developed the concept into its present-day form. He claimed that ''"tonalité"'' is the primary organizing agent of all melodic and harmonic successions and that the efforts of other theorists to find the fundamental principle of music in "acoustics, mathematics, aggregations of intervals, or classifications of chords have been futile." The majority of the ''Traité complet'' is devoted to explaining how ''tonalité'' organizes music. The primary factor of determining tonality is the scale. It sets out the order of the succession of tones in major and minor (the only two "tonal" modes which he recognizes), the distances which separate the tones, and the resultant melodic and harmonic tendencies. Tonality is not only a governed and conditioned state, but it is a socially conditioned one. Scales are cultural manifestations, resulting from shared experience and education. Nature provides the elements of tonalité, but human understanding, sensibility, and will determine particular harmonic systems. This concept was called a "
Metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
principle" by Fétis, though Carl Dahlhaus argues that the term is used in this case to denote an anthropological, culturally relative sense in his 1990 book ''Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality'', and theorist Rosalie Schellhous posits that the Kantian term "transcendental" might be more appropriate. In his comparative work, Fétis attempted "a new method of classifying human races according to their musical systems" following contemporary trends of social darwinism in the emerging fields of ethnology and anthropology.


Harmonic and rhythmic modulation

However, if one wishes to interpret Fétis' metaphysical theory, one of his unique theoretical ideas is laid out in book 3 of the ''Traité complet'', that of harmonic modulation. Fétis argues that tonality has evolved over the course of time through four distinct phases, or ''ordres'': *Unitonic – Resulting from plainchant tonality, the unitonic phase consists mainly of
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
triads with no possibility for modulation due to the lack of the tritone between the 4th and 7th scale degrees. This phase is also referred to by Fétis as ''tonalité ancienne''. *Transitonic – Order which began with the introduction of the dominant 7th chord into harmonic discourse, sometime between Zarlino and Monteverdi. This development is also directly related to the codification of cadential systems and periodic phrase structure. *Pluritonic – Modulation is achieved through enharmonic relationships in which one note of a chord is considered the point of contact between different scales. Fétis claims that
Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...
was the first to use such modulations as a means of expression. In this order, the diminished 7th and augmented 6th chords become important as they can modulate to several different tonalities. *Omnitonic – The final phase of tonality, and one embodied for Fétis by Wagner, where the alteration of the intervals of natural chords and modification by substitution of notes is so complex that it becomes impossible to identify the original chord. This is seen as a period of extremes, and undesirable compared to the moderately chromatic music of Meyerbeer. Fétis later applied this same system of ordres to rhythm, "the least advanced part of music... heregreat things remain to be discovered." Though he did not publish these theories in any of his treatises, they appear in several articles for the ''Revue musicale'' and in some lectures which had a profound impact on Liszt. Though music had not yet made it past the first phase, Unirhythm, by Fétis' time, he argues that composers may be able to "mutate" from one meter to another within the same melodic phrase. Though Liszt may have been an open disciple of the ideas of the Omnitonic and Omnirhythmic, the influence of such thinking can perhaps be seen most clearly in the music of Brahms, where hemiola and mixing of time signatures is a common occurrence.


"Se i miei sospiri"

The Italian art song, "Se i miei sospiri", appeared in a Paris concert organized by Fétis in 1833. Fétis published the piece for voice and strings in 1838 and then again in 1843 for voice and piano with alternate lyrics ("Pietà, Signore"). It is these alternate lyrics with which the piece is now typically associated. Fétis attributed the song to Alessandro Stradella and claimed to possess an original manuscript of the work but never produced it for examination. As early as 1866, musicologists were questioning the authenticity of the song, and when Fétis' library was acquired by the Royal Library in Brussels after his death, no such manuscript could be found. Owing to this and the fact that the style of the piece is inconsistent with Stradella's own period, the authorship of the piece is now typically attributed to Fétis himself. The original Italian text for the song (Se i miei sospiri) was found set to different music by Alessandro Scarlatti in his 1693 oratorio "The Martyrdom of St. Theodosia".Glenn Paton, John (1991). "26 Italian Songs and Arias: An Authoritative Edition Based on Authentic Sources". Alfred Publishing.


Publications

*''Biographies de Joseph et Michael Haydn'' (Paris, n.d.) *''Méthode elementaire et abregée d'harmonie et d'accompagnement'' (Paris: Petit, 1823) *''Traité du contrepoint et de la fugue...'' (Paris: Charles Michael Ozu, 1824) *''Revue musicale'' (Paris, 1827–35) *''Curiosités historiques de la musique, complément nécessaire de la musique mise à la portée de tout le monde'' (Paris: Janet et Cotelle, 1830) *''Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique'' (Brussels, 1833–1844 vols. *''Traité du chant en choeur'' (Paris, 1837) *''Esquisse de l'histoire de l'harmonie considérée comme art et comme science systématique'' (Paris, 1840). *''Traité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l'harmonie'' (Paris and Brussels, 1844) *''Antoine Stradivari, luthier célèbre'' (Paris, 1856) *''Histoire générale de la musique'' (Paris, 1869–76; 5 vls., unfinished)


Honours

* : ** Master of the Royal Music.F.J. FETIS 1784 - 1871. HET MUZIEKLEVEN VAN ZIJN TIJD. Brussel, Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I, 1972/ pag. 100 ** Grand Officer in the Order of Leopold. * : Commander in the Order of the Oak Crown. * : Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle. * : Officer of the
Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
. ;Academic Honours * Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. * Member of the Academy of Rome. * Member of the Academy of Berlin. * Member of the Academy of Vienna. * Member of the Academy of Stockholm. * Member of the Academy of London.


Compositions


Ensembles

* String Quartet No. 1 * String Quartet No. 2 * Grand Sextet, Op. 5


Overtures

* Ouverture de concert à grand orchestre


Concertos

* 1869: Flute Concerto in B minor


Symphonies

* 1862: Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major * Symphonic Fantasy for organ and orchestra


Masses

* Messe di Requiem


Songs

* Se i miei sospiri


References

*


Further reading

*


External links


Scores

*


Texts and books


''Books''
with "Fétis" as author (Google Books)
''Books''
with occurrences of "Fétis" (Google Books)
''Texts''
with occurrences of "Fétis" (archive.org) * ''Biographie universelle des musiciens'' (2nd edition) at
Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
: *
Vol. 1
1860 (478 pages) Aaron – Bohrer (+vol. 2) *
Vol. 2
1861 (484 pages) Boildieu – Derossi (+vol. 1) *
Vol. 3
1862 (480 pages) Désargus – Giardini *
Vol. 4
1862 (491 pages) Gibbons – Kazynski *
Vol. 5
1863 (480 pages) Kechlina – Martini (+vol. 6) *
Vol. 6
1864 (496 pages) Martini, leP – Pérolle (+vol. 5) *
Vol. 7
1864 (548 pages) Perotti – Scultetus (+vol. 8) *
Vol. 8
1865 (527 pages) Sebastiani – Zyka (+vol. 7) * ''Biographie universelle des musiciens'' (supplement by Arthur Pougin) at
Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
: *
Vol. 1
1878 (480 pages) Abadie – Holmes *
Vol. 2
1880 (691 pages) Holmes, Mlle Augusta – Zwingli * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fetis, Francois-Joseph 1784 births 1871 deaths 19th-century Belgian classical composers 19th-century Belgian male musicians Belgian male classical composers Belgian musicologists Belgian music critics Belgian music educators Belgian music theorists Belgian Romantic composers Book and manuscript collectors Historicist composers Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris Conservatoire de Paris alumni Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium Prix de Rome for composition Royal Library of Belgium People from Mons, Belgium Walloon people Musical hoaxes French scholars