François Joseph Fétis Biography

François Joseph Fétis

(Mons, 1784-Brussels, 1871) Belgian composer, conductor and musicologist.He is the author of pieces for piano, comic operas and religious works and chamber music.He wrote a Universal Biography of Musicians and General Bibliography of Music (1837-1844) and an unfinished General History of Music (1869-1876).

François-Joseph Fétis

His father, an organist, led him to musical studies, which he carried out at the Paris Conservatoire.He stayed for some years in Douai as organist and teacher of song and harmony at the local Music School, and in 1818 he returned to the capital; There he developed his multiple activities as composer, teacher, scholar and critic for some fifteen years.From 1821 he taught counterpoint and fugue at the Conservatory.

François-Joseph Fétis was in charge of the music criticism of Le Temps and Le National , and in 1826 he founded the Revue musicale , to whose writing he dedicated himself for five years, during which time he notably favored the studies of history and music criticism.In 1833 Leopold I of Belgium appointed him director of the Brussels Conservatory; François Joseph Fétis moved to this city, where he spent the rest of his life, also serving as the master of the royal chapel.Fétis composed many works of instrumental, vocal, symphonic, theatrical and sacred music, in which he made extensive use of his knowledge as a harmonist and contrapunter; but it nevertheless revealed a rather limited and generic fantasy.

The fame of François-Joseph Fétis is linked above all to historical and theoretical texts: General History of Music (1869-1876), Universal Biography of musicians and general bibliography of music (1837-1844) and Music available to everyone (1830), works that, despite some inaccuracies and contradictions, are still useful for its wealth of information.

The Universal Biography of Musicians and General Bibliography of Music of Fétis is a musical dictionary in eight volumes, published in Paris from 1837 to 1844.Arthur Pougin wrote a two-volume supplement in 1878-1880.It is the most important work of the Belgian musicologist, and undoubtedly represents for that time a remarkable contribution to the studies of this matter.The material is excellent; Many musicians are cited, now older and younger; and their biographies are generally very extensive.

Of course, errors are also in proportion; there is a lack of true critical sense and, on the contrary, a superficial ease of judgment.However, despite its critical dilettantism, Universal Biography continues to have a certain informative value, especially in the part that refers to the Middle Ages.But perhaps his greatest interest lies in the abundance of news about minor musicians, especially French, which is still very useful today.

Music available to everyone (1830) is an essay on music theory that was reprinted several times with the addition of a small dictionary of musical terms and a bibliography of music.The popular nature of the work is already indicated in the subtitle: "Exposé succin de tout ce qui est nécessaire pour juger de cet art, et pour en parler sans l'avoir étudié".

The theoretical part (that is, excluding the dictionary) is divided into four sections: the first contains an elementary exposition of the musical system, accompanied by a few words about the origins of music; the second deals with the various branches of musical composition, namely: melody, harmony, counterpoint, composition proper, instrumentation; the third contains the rules for performance, especially for singers; in the fourth, the author talks about "the way the sensation produced by music is analyzed", that is, he tries to give an essay on musical aesthetics.

The work is worthy of its clarity and order of exposition, and at the time it was published it was useful as a popular instruction manual.In addition to the friendly ease of the speech, some particular considerations remain appreciable, for example on the existing analogy between the impression that music produces in the layman and the composer's conception at the beginning of his inspiration (like a vague flash of lightning, still devoid of details), or on the union of music and word.The limits of François-Joseph Fétis's thought are especially revealed in the chapters on aesthetics; Its fundamental idea is that music does not pursue the purpose of cheering the ear, but rather of making simple and complex ideas and feelings of the soul sensitive; Very little original idea, although it does suggest some healthy and useful rules to the author.