Antoine Elwart

Antoine Aimable Elie Elwart (19 September 1808 – 14 October 1877) was a French composer and musicologist.

Elwart was born in Paris in the family home. At the age of ten, he became a chorister at the mastery of the Saint-Eustache church: Antoine Ponchard (a master of the chapel since 1815) ensured his first musical training. This teaching marked him for all his life, and spiritual music remained one of his great influences.

Curious to discover the activity of professional musicians, he escaped from the work of manufacturer of crates where his parents had sent him and managed to become second violin in a street orchestra. In 1823, at the age of fifteen, a mass with four voices and a large orchestra of his composition was given at St-Roch Church.

In 1825, the singer Cambon interpreted a scene by Elwart on the motif of the "Exiled". This year marked especially his entrance to the École royale de musique (the future Conservatoire de Paris) in counterpoint, harmony and fugue and music composition classes. His professors were François-Joseph Fétis, Jean-François Lesueur, Berlioz. Elwart was awarded the First Fugue Prize in 1830. In 1835, he performed a new Mass for Saint Cecilia.

He attempted the Grand prix de Rome in 1831 with the cantata La Fuite de Bianca Capello but only won second prize.

He had to wait until 1834 to win the Grand Prix with L'Entrée en loge, a cantata composed on a text by Jean François Gail. He thus became a boarder at the Villa Medici. He left his post as a tutor for the composing class of Antoine Reicha during his stay at Villa Medici.

Already known to the Parisian public, he played in France his compositions that he sent from Rome. He produced a Deuxième messe solennelle in 1835 dedicated to the Duchess of Orleans, an Italian opera and the funeral Omaggio alla memoria di Vincenzo Bellini (November 1835, Teatro Valle, Rome) in hommage to the famous opera composer who died shortly before. He presented an Ouverture on 20 October 1838, badly received by a skeptical jury and against possible innovations: the three voices of men on the second motif in E minor probably left a bitter taste.

Back in Paris in 1837, he returned to the Conservatoire, but became assistant professor of Reicha, then holder of his own class created by Cherubini, the director of the Conservatoire de Paris. Elwart held the post until his retirement in 1871. Among his pupils were Louis-Aimé Maillart, Georges Bousquet [fr], Théodore Gouvy, Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin, Émile Prudent, Olivier Métra, Edmond Hocmelle, Adolphe Blanc, Albert Gisarn, Victor Frédéric Verrimst and Oscar Comettant who described him as "an ingenious and witty scholar". It seems that he had a good relationship with his pupils, the latter ironically calling him "little father Elwart".

In parallel with his classes, Antoine Elwart was a prolific composer: he wrote a Messe solennelle in 1838 for the baptism of the Comte de Paris (future pretender "Philippe VII"), and presented on 24 August. On 4 February, he had a mass played at the église St. Eustache, with Pierre-Louis Dietsch as the organist and Ambroise Thomas as the conductor.

Elwart died in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

He received the Cross of Spain by Charles III. The King of Prussia decorated him with the cross of the red eagle. He was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1873 in the salle du Conservatoire [fr], a distinction to which he responded in the tone of humour: Vive la République!

You understand, I made a cantata to celebrate the glory of Charles X. He did not decorate me; I celebrated in music the virtues of Louis Philippe, he did not decorate me; I have sung the blessings of the Empire, the Emperor has not decorated me; I have never done anything for the Republic, and it decorates me; It is only right that I am grateful to it!

"To be a musician is to have the innate feeling of the musical beauty, to understand and admire all that is great and poetic in all the schools, it is to have repulsion only for the ugly, the extravagant, the grotesque, and finally, being sufficiently master of oneself to have the courage to listen to a work that deserves this name without judging it according to the label of the bag. It means knowing how to enjoy all kinds of styles, without renouncing the sincere and unprejudiced admiration which such and such a master, this or that virtuoso, with whom our organization makes us willingly enter into a community of ideas"