Jules Auguste Demersseman (9 January 1833 – 1 December 1866) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 flautist

Flautist

A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Biography

Demersseman was born in Hondschoote

Hondschoote

Hondschoote is a commune of the Nord département, in northern France.-Heraldry:-Geography:Hondschoote lies on the French side of the Franco-Belgian frontier, just inland from the North Sea....

, Département Nord, France, near the Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 border. At the ripe age of eleven, he was a student of Jean-Louis Tulou

Jean-Louis Tulou

Jean-Louis Tulou was a French flute teacher, player and instrument maker.- Family and Life :His father, Jean-Pierre Tulou , was a bassoonist in the Paris Opera....

 at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

. He won the first prize there at the age of twelve and quickly became famous as a virtuoso. However, he was not considered for a professorship, since he, influenced by his teacher, did not want to decide in favor of the modern type of transverse flute

Transverse flute

A transverse flute or side-blown flute is a flute which is held horizontally when played. The player blows "across" the embouchure hole, in a direction perpendicular to the flute's body length....

 designed by Theobald Böhm which had been introduced into France in the meantime. Demersseman was only 33 when he died in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, presumably from tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

.

Works

Demersseman wrote numerous works for his own instrument, the flute. Probably the best known of his works today is the Solo de Concert, Op. 82 No. 6. This piece, also known as the "Italian Concerto", uses a Neapolitan

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 folk melody in the middle movement and closes with a saltarello

Saltarello

The saltarello was a lively, merry dance first mentioned in Naples during the 13th century. The music survives, but no early instructions for the actual dance are known. It was played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare .-History:The...

. In addition to his works for flute, Demersseman was one of the first French composers to write music for the newly-developed saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

. He wrote a Fantasy for the saxophone and piano.

Media

Literature

• Pešek, U., Pešek, Ž.: Flötenmusik aus drei Jahrhunderten. Bärenreiter 1990. ISBN 3-7618-0985-9
• Goldberg, A.: Porträts und Biographien hervorragender Flöten-Virtuosen, -Dilettanten und -Komponisten. Moeck 1987 (Reprint of 1906). ISBN 3-87549-028-2

External links