1759–1803 · France · Baroque
François Devienne (1759–1803) was a French flautist, bassoonist and composer who taught at the Paris Conservatoire. He wrote comic operas, concertos for flute and bassoon, chamber music and a flute tutor. The site catalogue includes the Rondeau from his Oboe Sonata No. 2.
François Devienne was born on 31 January 1759 in Joinville, into the family of a saddler. He began music in early childhood: one of his older brothers was his first guide, and in his home town the boy sang in a church choir. At the same time he learned several instruments and tried his hand at composing. The flute and the bassoon came most easily to him.
He wrote his first work, a mass, at the age of ten, and professional musicians performed it. When his studies were over, Devienne moved to Paris in 1779. There he was supported by Baron de Bagge, a patron of the arts and a composer.
In Paris Devienne took flute lessons from Félix Rault. The training he had received in his youth let him perform in various Parisian ensembles, both as a soloist and as an orchestral player.
Devienne began his performing career as a musician in the military band of the Royal Swiss Guard, which later became the National Guard. From 1779 he played bassoon in the orchestra of the Paris Opera, and in 1780 he became its principal bassoonist.
From 1780 to 1785 he served as a chamber musician in the chapel of Cardinal Louis de Rohan. In 1788 Devienne played second bassoon in the orchestra of the Théâtre de Monsieur; a year later he became that orchestra's soloist and worked there until 1801.
Devienne was a Freemason, and he played flute in the orchestra of the Olympique lodge. That orchestra commissioned and performed Haydn's Paris symphonies.
Devienne made his debut as a flute soloist in 1782, playing one of his own flute concertos. Later he also made his debut as a bassoon soloist, with his first bassoon concerto.
Little is recorded about some years of his life, but in 1789 he performed his Fifth Symphonie concertante at the Concert spirituel. Between 1789 and 1792 Devienne married Mademoiselle Maillard, and they had five children.
In the 1790s Devienne wrote a great deal for the theatre. The series of Paris stagings between 1790 and 1799 began with the comic opera Le Mariage clandestin. The most popular is thought to have been Les Visitandines, to a libretto by Louis Benoît Picard. It was first performed on 7 August 1792 at the Théâtre Feydeau and was given more than two hundred times up to 1797.
His other comic operas include Les Précieuses ridicules after Molière (9 August 1791, Théâtre Montansier), Volécour, ou Un tour de page (22 March 1797, Opéra-Comique), Les Comédiens ambulants (28 December 1798, Théâtre Feydeau) and Le Valet de deux maîtres after Goldoni (2 November 1799, Théâtre Feydeau).
Devienne also composed romances and patriotic songs, as well as a symphony for large orchestra of twenty instruments called Bataille de Jemmapes, which was later arranged for harpsichord and violin.
From 1790 Devienne taught flute at the music school of the Paris National Guard, where he held the rank of sergeant and taught the children of his fellow band members. In 1793 his Méthode de Flûte Théorique et Pratique appeared, setting out his teaching ideas. The book was reprinted several times and translated into German, English and Italian.
In 1795 the school became part of the newly created Paris Conservatoire. Devienne became a member of its administration and one of five professors of flute, and he taught there until 1803. From then on a tradition took hold in Paris: the city's best flautists taught at the Conservatoire.
Joseph Guillou and François René Gebauer are named among Devienne's students. He himself played a single-keyed flute all his life, but he recommended multi-keyed instruments to his students.
The political and economic upheavals of the age, together with his very busy creative and public life, damaged Devienne's mental health. In May 1803 he was admitted to the Charenton asylum near Paris, where he died on 5 September 1803.
His Symphonie concertante for two flutes, Op. 76 No. 6, was first performed on 3 September 1803, two days before his death and in his absence.
Devienne's legacy is large. For the Paris stage he wrote more than ten comic operas, staged between 1790 and 1799. He is also credited with about 300 orchestral and instrumental works, among them concertos for flute, bassoon and horn with orchestra and quartets, mostly for flute, violin, viola and cello.
He also wrote a great deal of other flute music, songs for voice with flute and piano accompaniment, and oboe sonatas, Opp. 70 and 71. His chamber works include six duets for flute and viola, Op. 5, published in 1784, and quartets for flute, viola and cello, Op. 16, published around 1786. For the flageolet he composed Six duos très faciles pour deux flageolets, which appeared in Paris in 1797.
Devienne's music is close in spirit to Mozart's, and his contemporaries called him the French Mozart. In the 1960s Jean-Pierre Rampal brought the composer's flute works back to listeners, and they became well known among flautists. The complete oboe sonatas, Opp. 70 and 71, were recorded and released in 2012.
The site catalogue includes the Rondeau from the Oboe Sonata No. 2 in F, from Opus 70. The difficulty level of this edition is Intermediate+.