(Achille) Claude Debussy was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Louis-Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy, choral pieces including the Requiem and L'Enfance du Christ, his three operas Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict, and works of hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust.
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868).
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 Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music and dance, drawing on the traditions of the 'French School'.
Les Apaches was a group of musicians, writers and artists which formed in Paris, France in 1903. The core was formed by the French composer Maurice Ravel, the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes and the writer and critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi. The group was private but never formal, and the wider membership was fluid; over 20 unofficial members would attend meetings of Les Apaches until it came to an end during World War I. During their active years, Les Apaches met weekly. The meetings were a chance for the members to perform and show new works or ideas to a small group, discuss contemporary artistic interests and collaborate.
Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht was a French composer, conductor and writer.
A mélodie is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German Lied. A chanson, by contrast, is a folk or popular French song.
Jean Fournet was a French flutist and conductor.
Jean Jules Aimable Roger-Ducasse was a French composer.
French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and Messiaen. Many foreign-born composers have played a part in the French tradition as well, including Lully, Gluck, Salieri, Cherubini, Spontini, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Offenbach.
Émile Signol was a French artist who painted history paintings, portraits, and genre works. Although he lived during the Romantic period, he espoused an austere neoclassicism and was hostile to Romanticism.
Des pas sur la neige is a musical composition by French composer Claude Debussy. It is the sixth piece in the composer's first book of Préludes, written between late 1909 and early 1910. The title is in French and translates to "Footprints in the Snow" The piece is 36 measures long and takes approximately three and a half to four and a half minutes to play. It is in the key of D minor. The prelude was, along with Danseuses de Delphes, one of the preludes Debussy believed should be played "entre quatre-z-yeux" meaning intimately, as if privately.
Yves Gérard was a French musicologist.
The Colonne Orchestra is a French symphony orchestra, founded in 1873 by the violinist and conductor Édouard Colonne.
Roger David Edward Nichols is an English music scholar, critic, translator and author. After an early career as a university lecturer he became a full-time freelance writer in 1980. He is particularly known for his works on French music, including books about Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and the Parisian musical scene of the years after the First World War. Among his translations is the English version of the standard biography of Gabriel Fauré by Jean-Michel Nectoux. Nichols was decorated by the French authorities in 2006 for his contribution to French musical studies.
Alexandre Montfort was a French classical composer. His works included instrumental music, art songs and six operas. He was awarded the Prix de Rome in composition in 1830.
François Lesure was a French librarian and musicologist.
Julian Gordon Rushton is an English musicologist, born in Cambridge. He has contributed the entry on Mozart in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and several other articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and other reference works. He has written a critical study of the style of Hector Berlioz and was involved in critical editions of that composer's works. In 1999, he published an analysis of Elgar's Enigma Variations. His book Coffee with Mozart (2007) has been translated into German. He also wrote Mozart and Mozart: An Extraordinary Life (2006). In addition to his 1983 work The Musical Language of Berlioz, he wrote The Music of Berlioz as well as several articles on Mozart, Berlioz, and Elgar. He was General Editor of Cambridge Music Handbooks, contributing Berlioz, Roméo et Juliette and Elgar, 'Enigma' Variations. He has edited works by Charpentier, Berlioz, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams. He is editor the Cambridge Berlioz Encyclopedia (2018). He was for 25 years chair of the Editorial Committee of Musica Britannica.
Barbara Lucy Kelly is a musicologist specialising in 19th- and early 20th-century French music, an area in which she is widely regarded as a leading authority. She has dual UK and Irish citizenship. A professor and director of research at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, she is the first woman to be elected President of the Royal Musical Association (2021–2023).
