André Cardinal Destouches

Called André Cardinal Destouches ( baptized on April 6, 1672 in Paris, † February 3, 1749 ) was a French composer.

Life

André Cardinal, son of a rich merchant and landed gentry led a young age a eventful life. He attended from 1681 to 1686 the Jesuit College in the rue Saint -Jacques in Paris to study with the intention of theology. With his teacher, a priest, he traveled to Siam to become a missionary to there. In 1688 he entered in Brest again on French soil and entered the cavalry. 1692, he joined the " Compagnie des 2ie mousquetaires du Roi ", with which he participated in the siege and capture of the fortress of Namur in the same year. During his military service he began composing, this earned him the respect of major generals, who introduced him to the Parisian salons.

After the death of his father in 1694 he inherited the title of Lords of Destouches, a name he no longer wore. He began training as a composer André Campra, in 1697 the composition for three arias of its opera L'Europe galante transferred him. The contract for his first opera Issé he received through the agency of Prince Grimaldi, it was in October of the same year in Palace of Fontainebleau, presented in concert in the presence of King Louis XIV. The king saw in him the appointed successor to the late Jean -Baptiste Lully. As a consequence Destouches received in the following years, numerous commissions for stage works that have been performed at Versailles or Fontainebleau. Between 1704 and 1711 created any new works for the stage. In December 1712 began with the performance of the opera Callirhoé a second creative period.

1713 Destouches was appointed by a patent letter to Inspector général de l' Académie royale de musique, at a remuneration of 4,000 livres, to be paid out later it life long. In 1727 he became maître de musique de la chambre du roi in 1728 and director of the Paris Opera. After the death of André Campra 1744, he was on a par with François Collin de Blamont to Surintendent de la musique du roi promoted.

Works

Destouches composed operas in addition to the numerous airs, two secular cantatas, as well as some sacred cantatas, the latter regarded as lost.

Stage Works

• Issé, héroïque Pastorale (1697 )
• Amadis de Grèce, Tragédie lyrique (1699 )
• Marthésie, reine des Amazones première, Tragédie lyrique (1699 )
• Omphale, Tragédie lyrique ( 1701)
• Le Carnaval et la Folie, Comédie -ballet
• Callirhoé, Tragédie lyrique
• Télémaque et Calypso, Tragédie lyrique (1714 )
• Sémiramis, Tragédie lyrique (1718 )
• Les Éléments, opéra-ballet (1721 )
• Les Stratagèmes de l' Amour, Ballet héroïque (1726)