Jean Madeleine Marie Schneitzhöeffer (13 October 1785 – 14 October 1852) was a French composer.

Life

Born in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

, Schneitzhöeffer was a student of

Charles Simon Catel Charles-Simon Catel (; 10 June 1773 – 29 November 1830) was a French composer and educator born at L'Aigle, Orne. Biography Catel studied at the Royal School of Singing in Paris. He studied composition with François-Joseph Gossec and by t ...

at the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), or 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 Ja ...

. He won second prize for piano in 1803 and then joined the

Opéra This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most co ...

as a

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

st in 1815, where (seven years later) he was made ''chef de chant''. Made a professor of choral singing at the Conservatoire, he was granted 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 ...

in 1840. He died in

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 ...

Works

He composed several ballet scores for the Opéra de Paris, including : * ''Mars et Vénus'' * ''Le Sicilien'' * ''Proserpine'' (1818) * ''Le Séducteur au village'' (1818) * ''Zémire et Azor'' (1824) * ''Les Filets de Vulcain'' (1826) * ''

La Sylphide ''La Sylphide'' (; ) is a romantic ballet in two acts. There were two versions of the ballet; the original choreographed by Filippo Taglioni in 1832, and a second version choreographed by August Bournonville in 1836. Bournonville's is the only ve ...

'', for

Marie Taglioni Marie Taglioni, Comtesse de Voisins (23 April 1804 – 22 April 1884) was a Swedish-born ballet dancer of the Romantic ballet era partially of Italian descent, a central figure in the history of European dance. She spent most of her life in t ...

(1832) * ''La Tempête'' (1834) Musicians from Toulouse 1785 births 1852 deaths 19th-century French classical composers French ballet composers French Romantic composers French male classical composers Recipients of the Legion of Honour 19th-century French male musicians Players of the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris {{France-composer-stub