Édouard-Marie-Ernest Deldevez

(1817–1897)

Born in Paris. He started to learn playing violin at six. After graduating from of the Paris Conservatoire, from 1833, played at the Paris Opera orchestra; also, beginning from 1839, at the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. In the period from 1847 to 1870, was a conductor of the Opera, and from 1872 to 1877, continued on the same venue as the principal conductor: it was him who stood at the conductor’s stand on the opening night at the theatre’s new building, Palais Garnier, on 5 January 1875.

Deldevez was the first Professor of conducting at the Conservatoire (1873–1885), in the same period he served as the principal conductor at the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts. He was author of a number of works on the theory of music and the art of conducting, and published an anthology of violin music of the 17th-18th centuries and a selection of composers from Lully to Wagner.

His heritage as a composer includes three Requiems, three symphonies, three piano sonatas, two string quartets and a string quintet, violin solo pieces, orchestral pieces, cantatas, spiritual choir music. Paquita (1846) was the most successful of his compositions for the theatre.