Horace Remi Poussard (11 June 1829 – 12 September 1898) was a French violinist and composer.

Career

Poussard was born in

Château-Gontier Château-Gontier () is a former commune in the Mayenne department in north-western France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Château-Gontier-sur-Mayenne. Geography It is about south of Laval, the préfecture of the depa ...

, the son of music teacher and conductor Charles Francois Poussard. He studied 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 ...

, graduating with the First Class prize in violin in 1849 with a performance of a

Viotti Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness. He was also a director of French and Italia ...

Concerto (reviewed in ''La Vigie de l'Ouest'', 14 September 1849). In the 1850s he began his career as a professional violinist with concerts in Paris, Vienna, and Constantinople. He also travelled through Hungary, Greece,

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...

, and the British Isles. In 1860 he appeared in London, along with a fellow French cellist, René Douay. In 1861 Poussard and Douay sailed to Australia, and gave their first concerts there in Melbourne. They toured the goldfields and major towns in the states of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

and

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

before going to the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

of New Zealand. During this period, their repertoire consisted mainly of more popular pieces, easily recognised by the inhabitants of the newly emerging country. To commemorate the exploration (and death) of

Burke and Wills The Burke and Wills expedition (originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition) was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61. The exploration party initially consisted of nine ...

on their journey across Australia, Poussard wrote ''The Dead Heroes'', a musical poem of 17

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

s incorporating well known existing tunes. The song was well received. In 1864, Douay, who was suffering from a mental illness, "went mad" while in Melbourne and was shipped back to France, to remain in an asylum for the rest of his life. Poussard and a musical comedy singer named Florence Beverley (Florence Calzado) left Australia for a four-year tour of India and South Africa, linking up with Robert Smythe (a manager) and his wife Amelia Bailey (a soprano). The so-called Poussard-Bailey Opera Company gave more than 300 performances in this period as well as coping with the difficulties of travel by land and sea. Poussard returned to France in December 1868 and continued performing in France and the British Isles. He played in the Royal Court of

Empress Eugénie The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

and with

Giovanni Bottesini Giovanni Bottesini (22 December 1821 – 7 July 1889) was an Italian Romantic composer, conductor, and a double bass virtuoso. Biography Born in Crema, Lombardy, he was taught the rudiments of music by his father, an accomplished clarinetist ...

, the celebrated double-bass player. He married an

Opera Comique The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, located between Wych Street, Holywell Street and the Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and K ...

singer, Louise Félicie Jean (Lottie Montal) in London in 1874 and in 1883 returned to Australia where they performed and where he increasingly taught piano and violin. His last tour was to New Zealand in 1890, and he died in Sydney in 1898.THE LATE HORACE POUSSARD.
''Nelson (NZ) Evening Mail'', Volume XXXII, Issue 218, 21 September 1898, Page 4

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poussard, Horace 1829 births 1898 deaths 19th-century French violinists 19th-century French male musicians French male classical violinists 19th-century French composers French male composers People from Château-Gontier