Jean François Lesueur

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Jean François Lesueur (January 15, 1760 or 1763 - October 6, 1837), was a French musical composer.

Born at Drucat-Plessiel, near Abbeville, he was a choir boy in the cathedral of Amiens, and then became musical director at various churches. In 1786 he obtained by open competition the musical directorship of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, where he gave successful performances of sacred music with a full orchestra. He resigned in 1787; and, after a retirement of five years in a friend's country house, he produced La Caverne and two other operas at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris.

At the foundation of the Paris Conservatoire (1795), Lesueur was appointed one of its inspectors of studies, but was dismissed in 1802, owing to his disagreements with Etienne Méhul. Lesueur succeeded Giovanni Paisiello as Maestro di cappella to Napoleon, and produced (1804) his Ossian at the Opera.

He also composed for the emperor's coronation a mass and a Te Deum. King Louis XVIII, who had retained Lesueur in his court, appointed him (1818) professor of composition at the Conservatoire; and at this institution he had, among many other pupils, Hector Berlioz, Ambroise Thomas, Louis Désir, Carlo Besozzi and Charles Gounod.

Lesueur composed eight operas and several masses, and other sacred music.

See Raoul Rochette, Les Ouvrages de M. Lesueur (Paris. 1819).