Henri Berton

Henri Montan Berton was a French composer and music theorist born on 17 September 1767 in Paris. He was the son and student of conductor and composer Pierre Montan Berton and later became the father of Charles François as well as the grandfather of playwright and actor Pierre Berton. His earliest musical education included violin studies with Jean-Baptiste Rey, while his compositional training was shaped by the Italian composer Antonio Sacchini. By 1782 he was already performing as a violinist in the orchestra of the Paris Opera.

Berton made his operatic debut in 1784 with "The First Navigator" (Le Premier navigateur). He soon became known primarily as an opera composer, achieving his greatest success with "The Rigours of the Cloister" (Les Rigueurs du cloître, 1790), a work that helped establish the characteristic "rescue opera" genre at the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. Over the course of his career he composed 48 operas, including noteworthy works such as "Montano and Stéphanie" (Montano et Stéphanie, 1799), the first of his operas to be staged in the United States, "Aline, Queen of Golconda" (Aline reine de Golconde, 1803), and "Françoise de Foix" (1809), based on the life of the semi-official mistress of King Francis I. He also produced numerous adaptations for the Paris Opera, including a 1813 reworking of Mozart’s "Così fan tutte".

Between 1810 and 1815 Berton served as chorus director of the Paris Opera. Beyond his operatic output, he wrote sacred music as well as patriotic hymns and marches during the French Revolution. From the founding of the Paris Conservatory in 1795 he worked as a professor of harmony, and in 1817 he succeeded Étienne Méhul as professor of composition.

Berton authored several theoretical works on harmony and also published the pamphlet "On Mechanical Music and Philosophical Music" (De la musique mécanique et de la musique philosophique, 1826), a critique aimed at Gioachino Rossini, whose popularity was rising in France. Henri Montan Berton died in Paris on 22 April 1844.

Connections

This figure has 3 connections in the art history graph.