Charles Lenepveu

Charles-Ferdinand Lenepveu (4 October 1840 – 16 August 1910), was a French composer and teacher. Destined for a career as a lawyer, he defied his family and followed a musical career. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and won France's top musical award, the Prix de Rome in 1867.

Much of Lenepveu's career was as a professor at the Conservatoire from 1880. He was known as a strict conservative, hostile to musical innovation, as was much of the French musical Establishment of the time. He was expected to succeed Théodore Dubois as director of the Conservatoire in 1905, but his chances evaporated when he was implicated in an attempt to rig the results of that year's Prix de Rome in favour of his own pupils.

Lenepveu was born in Rouen (Seine-Maritime), the son of Charles-François Lenepveu, a prominent lawyer, and his wife Marie-Françoise-Armande, née Petit. The young Lenepveu received a traditional education in his home town, while at the same time teaching himself musical theory and learning to play the violin.

Lenepveu senior was strongly opposed to his son's seeking a musical career and enrolled him at the Sorbonne Law School in Paris. Lenepveu was an outstanding student, and qualified to practise law in December 1862. During his time at the Sorbonne he had been taking lessons in music theory and harmony with Augustin Savard, professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and counterpoint and fugue with Alexis Chauvet, organist of Saint-Merri and Sainte-Trinité, Paris.

In 1862, Lenepveu won first prize in a competition with a cantata, which was performed in Caen. He decided to defy his father and abandon the law in favour of a career in music. In 1864, on Chauvet's recommendation, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied composition under Ambroise Thomas. The following year he won France's most prestigious musical award, the Grand Prix de Rome, with his cantata Renaud in the Gardens of Armida to words by Camille du Locle. The Prize brought with it a two-year period of study at the French Academy in Rome, based at the Villa Medici. While there he successfully took part in a competition for dramatic composition; his three-act comic opera Le florentin, to a libretto by Henri de Saint-Georges. After much delay, and pressure from the composer, the piece was staged at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in February 1874. It was moderately successful there and achieved greater success in the provinces. Before the delayed presentation of Le florentin Lenepveu's Requiem Mass was performed at Notre-Dame de Bordeaux in 1871, won critical approval, and was given in Paris the following year.

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