Manon |
Jules Emile Frederic
Massenet was born in
St. Etienne, France in
1842, the son of an
industrialist. He
received his first music
lessons from his mother,
and entered the Paris
Conservatory at the age
of nine, specializing in
piano and studying
composition with Antoine
Thomas. At the age of
twenty-one, he won the
Prix de Rome and spent
two years at the Villa
Medici, followed by
travels to Germany and
Austro-Hungary.
When he returned to
Paris he married and
kept himself and his
wife with small
commissions and playing
percussion in the
orchestra at the Paris
Opera until his works
became known. He wrote a
total of twenty-seven
operas, his greatest
successes being Le
Roi de Lahore;
Herodiade;
Manon; Le
Cid; Werther;
Thais (1894);
The Juggler of Notre
Dame and Don
Quichotte. Among his
other works were
ballets, orchestral and
choral music, a piano
concerto, cantatas (one
of them entitled
David Rizzio), a cello
fantasy, and some 200
songs.
Massenet was much honored
in his lifetime, being made
the youngest member of the
French Academie in 1879,
and eventually becoming its
President. He taught at the
Paris Conservatory from
1878-1896, and among his
pupils were Reynaldo Hahn,
Charles Koechlin and
Florent Schmitt. He died in
Paris in 1912 and is buried
in the village of
Egreville, where he had his
country
house. |
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