Devienne, François (1759, 1803)

François Devienne (1759-1803) was a French composer and professor of flute at the Paris Conservatory. He was born in Joinville (Haute-Marne), the youngest of fourteen children of a saddlemaker. After receiving his first musical training as a choirboy in his hometown, he played in various Parisian ensembles as soloist and orchestra player. He studied the flute with Félix Rault and in 1780 he joined the household of Cardinal de Rohan. He was active in Paris as a flautist, bassoonist and composer, and played bassoon in the Paris Opera. He wrote successful operas in the 1790s, including Les visitandines (1792) which brought him much success.



He was also a member of the 'Military Band of the French Guard' where he was given the rank of sergeant with the duty of teaching the children of his colleagues in the military band in its Free School of Music. After the Revolutionary period, when Free School became the National Institute of Music, later chartered as the Paris Conservatory in 1795, François Devienne was appointed an administrator and flute professor. He wrote an important Flute School 'Méthode de Flûte Théorétique et Pratique' (1793), which was reprinted several times and did much to improve the level of French wind music in the late 18th century. Like many other musicians, he joined the freemasons and 'Concerts de la Loge Olympique' orchestra.



Devienne died at a sanatorium in Charenton near Paris on September 5, 1803, probably of overwork.



His output comprises ca. 300 instrumental works that are mostly written for wind instruments. There are a dozen flute concertos, sinfonias for woodwinds, quartets and trios for different ensembles, 12 operas and 4 bassoon concertos, all in an elegant melodic style.



Devienne’s compositions for flute, revived by Jean-Pierre Rampal in the 1960s, are now better known to flautists, but still not, unfortunately, to the public at large. As well as extensive educational work, including the well-known Méthode of 1794, with its extremely interesting articles on technique and style of the time, his collected works also include eight books of sonatas for flute or bassoon, a variety of chamber music and no less than seventeen concertos. The brilliant and melodic style of these last makes them perfect examples of the concertante classical genre, comparable only to work by the Viennese composer Franz-Anton Hoffmeister (1754- 1812), who himself wrote some 25 concertos for flute. Devienne was often called the French Mozart.