Hall of Composers

François-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)

François-Joseph Gossec was born on Jan. 17, 1734, in Vergnies, South Netherlands. He showed remarkable musical gifts as a child, began his formal musical education at age six at the collegiate church of Walcourt, and sang in the chapel of St. Aldegonde in Maubeuge. He joined the chapel of St. Pierre where he studied violin.

Gossec went to Paris in 1751 and joined an orchestra that was under the directorship of Jean-Philippe Rameau. Three years later he joined the private musical ensemble of the wealthy La Pouplinière and began to write chamber music and symphonies. His Symphony in D written in 1761 was among the first orchestral works in France to use clarinets. In the 1780s, he was an associate director at the Paris Opera and a manager of the Ecole Royale de Chant, and 1795 joined the newly founded Academie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France.

During the French Revolution Gossec wrote works that celebrated the monumental revolutionary events in his country including L’Offrande à la Liberté and numerous marches and hymns. At age 80 he retired to Passy, then a suburb of Paris, and he died in Paris on Feb. 16, 1829. www.artaria.com/Composer/Gossec.html

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