Gevaert, François-Auguste

Gevaert, François-Auguste – Danses célèbres des Fondateurs de l’Opéra français,
3e Suite: Rameau – Fragments de Castor et Pollux

(Huise, 30 July 1828 – Brussels, 24 December 1908)
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orchestrations of
Fragments from Castor et Pollux
(c. 1880?)
Jean-Philippe Rameau
(Dijon, bapt. 25 September 1683 – Paris, 12 September 1764)

François-Auguste Gevaert had a keen interest in early music, which was reflected in his wide-ranging activities as a composer, conductor, musicologist and conservatoire director. In this, he followed in the footsteps of François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871), his predecessor as director of the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels. During his long tenure as director in Brussels (1871–1908), Gevaert would crystallise his interest in early music, which had grown during his stay in Paris in the 1850s and 1860s, into musicological publications, historical concerts, score editions, and transcriptions and arrangements. With these publications and arrangements, Gevaert was not so much aiming for authenticity, but rather sought to introduce the students and public, both within and outside the Conservatoire, to an unknown yet valuable repertoire.
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​Gevaert published, among other works, Les gloires de l’Italie. Chefs-d’oeuvre, anciens et inédits, de la musique vocale italienne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Répertoire classique du chant français and Classisches Repertorium. Ausgewählte Compositionen alter Meister. In addition to these editions of Italian, French and German vocal music, he also produced orchestrations of opera excerpts in the series Danses célèbres des fondateurs de l’Opéra français: Lulli-Rameau-Gluck. For the third suite in that collection …

read full preface / Flemish and German preface … > HERE