Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, (17 March 178529 October 1853), known as Pierre Zimmerman and Joseph Zimmermann, was a French pianist, composer, and music teacher.

Zimmermann was born 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...

, the son of a piano maker. He attended the Paris Conservatory in 1798, studying piano with François-Adrien Boieldieu

François-Adrien Boïeldieu

François-Adrien Boieldieu was a French composer, mainly of operas, often called "the French Mozart".-Biography:...

; while a student there, he won first prizes for piano in 1800 (Friedrich Kalkbrenner

Friedrich Kalkbrenner

Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner was a German pianist, composer, piano teacher and piano manufacturer who spent most of his life in England and France. Before the advent of Frédéric Chopin, Sigismond Thalberg and Franz Liszt, Kalkbrenner was by many considered to be the foremost pianist in...

 came second) and harmony in 1802. He would later study under Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....

. Zimmermann became a piano assistant at the Conservatory in 1811 and a full professor there in 1816, serving until 1848; he refused a position as a professor of counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 and fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

 in 1821. Among his students were Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

 (who married one of his daughters), Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

, César Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

, Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...

, Ambroise Thomas

Ambroise Thomas

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.-Biography:"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas."- Emmanuel Chabrier-Early life...

, Louis Lacombe

Louis Lacombe

Louis Lacombe [Trouillon-Lacombe] Louis Lacombe [Trouillon-Lacombe] Louis Lacombe [Trouillon-Lacombe] (November 26, 1818, Bourges (Cher)– September 30, 1884, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, (Marne) was a French pianist and composer.-Biography:...

, and Lefébure-Wély

Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wely

Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wely was a French organist and composer.-Short Biography:Lefébure-Wely played a major role in the development of the French symphonic organ style and was a close friend of the organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, inaugurating many new Cavaillé-Coll organs.He began to...

. He was often assisted by Gounod.

He wrote two operas, L'enlèvement (Opéra-Comique

Opera Comique

The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...

, 1830) and Nausicaa (never staged). He also composed two piano concerto

Piano concerto

A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...

s, one piano sonata

Piano sonata

A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

, and numerous other works for piano. His most important legacy is considered his Encyclopédie du pianiste, a complete method of piano playing, including a treatise on harmony and counterpoint.

He died in Paris and is buried in Auteuil Cemetery in the 16th arrondissement.

Source

• Don Randel, The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Harvard, 1996, p. 1010-1011.

External links

• Alkan-Zimmerman International Music Association
• Alkan-Zimmerman International Piano Competition
• Cimetières de France et ailleurs: Cimetière d’Auteuil, brief biography of Zimmerman and photo of his grave