Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste
Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste
Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste, French conductor and composer; b. Eymet, Périgord, April 3, 1751; d. Paris, Dec. 30, 1796. He studied with J. G. Graun, Kirnberger, and J. A. P. Schulz at Berlin, and also held a minor post in the service of the Prussian Crown Prince. He then went to Warsaw, where he brought out his opera Le Bouquet de Colette (1775). Returning to Paris, he brought out an opera, Electre (July 2, 1782), pretending to be a pupil of Gluck, an imposture that Gluck did not see fit to expose until the failure of Lemoyne’s piece. In his next operas, Lemoyne abandoned Cluck’s ideas, copied the style of Piccinni and Sacchini, and produced several successful works, including Phèdre (Fontainebleau, Oct. 26, 1786), Les Prétendus (Paris, June 2, 1789), and Nephté (Paris, Dec. 15, 1789). His son, Gabriel Lemoyne (b. Berlin, Oct, 14, 1772; d. Paris, July 2, 1815), was a pianist and composer who studied piano with C.-F. Clement and J.F. Edelmann. He wrote 3 opéras comiques, 2 piano concertos, chamber music, vocal romances, and piano pieces.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire