Plantade, Charles-Henri

Plantade, Charles-Henri , French composer; b. Pontoise, Oct. 14, 1764; d. Paris, Dec. 18, 1839. As a child, he studied singing and the cello in the Royal School for the “pages de musique,” and afterward took lessons with Honoré Langlé (theory), Hüllmandel (piano), and Petrini (harp). In 1797 he became a singing teacher at the Campan Inst. at St.-Denis, where Hortense de Beauharnais, the future Queen of the Netherlands, was his pupil. He subsequently was in the service of Queen Hortense as her representative in Paris; was a prof. at the Paris Cons. from 1799 to 1807, and again in 1815–16 and from 1818 to 1828. From 1812 to 1815 he also held the post of singing master and stage director at the Paris Opéra. He received the ribbon of the Légion d’honneur from Louis XVIII (1814); from 1816, was music master of the Royal Chapel. Losing his various positions after the revolution of 1830, he retired to Batignolles. He wrote several operas, of which Le Mari de circonstances (Paris, March 18, 1813) was the most successful; other operas for Paris included Les 2 Soeurs (May 22, 1792), Les Souliers mordores (May 18, 1793), Au plus brave la plus belle (Oct. 5, 1794), Palma, ou Le Voyage en Grèce (Aug. 22, 1797), Romagnesi (Sept. 3, 1799), Le Roman (Nov. 12, 1800), Zoé, ou La Pauvre Petite Guly 3, 1800), Lisez Plutarque (Spring 1800), and Bayard à la ferté, ou Le Siège de Mezières (Oct. 13, 1811). His other works included masses, motets, etc., and he also publ. 20 sets of romances, 3 books of vocal duets (nocturnes), and a Harp Sonata. His son, Charles-François Plantade (b. Paris, April 14, 1787; d. there, May 26, 1870), was also a composer; studied at the Paris Cons.; worked in the Ministry of Fine Arts; wrote romances, chansons, and chansonettes.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire