Pierre-Joseph Candeille (8 December 1744 – 24 April 1827) was a French composer and singer, born in

Estaires Estaires (; ) is a commune in the Nord department of the Hauts-de-France region in northern France. The town gives its name to a type of chicken bred in the area: the Estaires chicken. Geography Estaires is located in French Flanders, in th ...

. He studied at

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

before moving to Paris, where he worked singing ''basse-taille'' in the chorus of the Opéra and the

Concert Spirituel The Concert Spirituel () was one of the first public concert series in existence. The concerts began in Paris in 1725 and ended in 1790. Later, concerts or series of concerts with the same name occurred in multiple places including Paris, Vienna ...

between 1767 and 1781, except for a brief period (1771—1773) he spent in Moulins. From 1784, he became a full-time composer. He worked at the Opéra as choirmaster from 1800 to 1802 and again from 1804 to 1805, before retiring to live in

Chantilly Chantilly may refer to: Places France *Chantilly, Oise, a city ** US Chantilly, a football club *Château de Chantilly United States * Chantilly, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Chantilly (Charlotte neighborhood), North Carolina ...

.Rushton in ''Grove'' Candeille wrote four symphonies, as well as ballets, divertissements and sacred music (including a mass and a

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for "y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary or Canticle of Mary, and in the Byzantine Rite as the Ode of the Theotokos (). Its Western name derives from the incipit of its Latin text. This ...

). None of his operas achieved much success, with the exception of his revision of

Jean-Philippe Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; ; – ) was a French composer and music theory, music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of ...

's ''

Castor et Pollux ''Castor et Pollux'' (''Castor and Pollux'') is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 24 October 1737 by the Académie royale de musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris. The librettist was Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard ...

''. Candeille's version was premiered at the Paris Opéra on 14 June 1791. By 1 January 1793, it had had 50 performances. It continued to be one of the most popular operatic works in the

Revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

and

Napoleonic period The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and history of Europe, Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly (French Revoluti ...

and was last staged in 1817. Candeille retained much of Rameau's original music, including "almost all the dances."Darlow pp. 221–225 Candeille was the father of the composer, singer and actor Amélie-Julie Candeille.

Works

Staged works

All information from

Julian Rushton Julian Gordon Rushton (born 22 May 1941) 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' ...

in '' Grove''.

Unperformed works

*''Les fêtes lupercales'' (pastorale-héroïque), 1777 *''L'Amour et Psyché, Bacchus et Erigone'', 1780 (proposed revision of two entrées of Mondonville's ''

Les fêtes de Paphos ''Les fêtes de Paphos'' (''The Festivals of Paphos'') is an ''opéra-ballet'' in three acts (or ''entrées'') by the French composer Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville. The work was described as a ''ballet héroïque'' on the title page of the ...

'') *''Thémire'' (opéra), c.1781 *''Lausus et Lydie'' (opéra), 1786 *''Les jeux olympiques'' (opéra), 1788 *''Ladislas et Adélaide'' (opéra), 1791 *''Roxane et Statira, ou Les veuves d'Alexandre'' (tragédie lyrique), c.1792 *''Brutus'' (opéra), 1793 *''Danaé'' (opéra), c.1796 *''Tithon et l'Aurore'' (opéra), c.1796 *''Ragonde'' (pastorale-héroïque), c.1798 *''Pithys'' (pastorale-héroïque)

References

Sources

*Beril H. Van Boer ''The Historical Dictionary of Music of the Classical Period'', Scarecrow Press, 2012. * Mark Darlow, ''Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opera, 1789-1794'', Oxford University Press, 2012. *

, "Candeille, Pierre-Joseph" in ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Candeille, Pierre-Joseph 1744 births 1827 deaths Musicians from Nord (French department) French opera composers French male opera composers