Paër, Ferdinando

Paër, Ferdinando, significant Italian composer; b. Parma, June 1, 1771; d. Paris, May 3, 1839. He studied with Francesco Fortunati and Gaspare Ghiretti in Parma, producing his first stage work, the prose opera Orphée et Euridice, there in 1791. On July 14,1792, he was appointed honorary maestro di cappella to the court of Parma, bringing out his opera Le astuzie amorose that same year at the Teatro Ducale there. His finest work of the period was Griselda, ossia La virtù al cimento (Parma, Jan. 1798). In 1797 he was appointed music director of the Kärnthnertortheater in Vienna. While there, he made the acquaintance of Beethoven, who expressed admiration for his work. It was in Vienna that he composed one of his finest operas, Camilla, ossia II sotteraneo (Feb. 23, 1799). Another fine opera was his Achille (Vienna, June 6, 1801). After a visit to Prague in 1801, he accepted the appointment of court Kapellmeister in Dresden. Three of his most important operas were premiered there: I Fuorusciti di Firenze (Nov. 27, 1802), Sargino, ossia L’Allievo dell’amore (May 26, 1803), and Leonora, ossia L’amore conjugale (Oct. 3, 1804), a work identical in subject with that of Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805). In 1806 he resigned his Dresden post and accepted an invitation to visit Napoleon in Posen and Warsaw. In 1807 Napoleon appointed him his maître de chapelle in Paris, where he also became director of the Opéra-Comique. Following the dismissal of Spontini in 1812, he was appointed director of the Théâtre-Italien. One of his most successful operas of the period, Le Maître de chapelle (Paris, March 29, 1821), remained in the repertoire in its Italian version until the early years of the 20^th century. Pae’r’s tenure at the Théâtre-Italien continued through the vicissitudes of Catalanes management (1814–17) and the troubled joint directorship with Rossini (1824–27). After his dismissal in 1827, he was awarded the cross of the Légion d’honneur in 1828; was elected a member of the Inst. of the Académie des Beaux Arts in 1831. He was appointed director of music of Louis Philippe’s private chapel in 1832. Paer was one of the most important Italian composers of opera in his era. His vocal writing was highly effective, as was his instrumentation. Nevertheless, his operas have disappeared from the active repertoire. His Leonora, however, was revived and recorded in the 1970s by the Swiss conductor Peter Maag.

Bibliography

T. Masse and A. Deschamps, De MM. P. et Rossini (Paris, 1820); F. Paër, M. P.: Ex-directeur du Théâtre- Italien, a MM les dilettans (Paris, 1827); C. de Colobrano, Funerailles de F. P. (Paris, 1893).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire