Edouard du Puy

Jean Baptiste Édouard Louis Camille Du Puy (1770 – 3 April 1822) was a Swiss-born singer, composer, director, and violinist. He lived and worked in Copenhagen and Stockholm from 1793 until his death in 1822.

Édouard Du Puy was born in Corcelles-Cormondrèche, Canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, around the year 1770, although sources differ on the exact year. From the age of four, he was raised by his uncle, a city musician in Geneva, whose last name Edouard later took. Seeing that his nephew had talent, the uncle made sure that Edouard became a musician of education.

In 1786, Du Puy was sent to Paris, where he was taught to play the piano by Jan Ladislav Dussek, and the violin by François Chabran. In 1789, he was appointed concertmaster at the court of Heinrich of Prussia in Rheinsberg, replacing J. A. P. Schulz, who was called to Denmark as a choir director at the Royal Danish Orchestra (Danish: Det Kongelige Kapel). Du Puy worked in Rheinsberg for four years while studying harmonies under Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch.

Still in his early twenties, in 1793 Du Puy traveled throughout the Holy Roman Empire, Poland and Sweden as a violinist. While in Stockholm, he was appointed to the royal chapel, and later also as an opera singer at the Royal Swedish Opera. During this period, he also had an affair with Sophie Hagman In 1799, he fell out of favor with king Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden by praising Napoleon. Du Puy was banished from Sweden, and traveled to Copenhagen.

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