François Benoist
1794 — 1878
François Benoist was a French organist, pedagogue, and composer.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article on François Benoist.
From the period sources
François Benoist, born in Nantes in 1794, established a significant career in Parisian musical life, primarily as an organist and teacher. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1811 to 1815, where his teachers included Catel and Adam, and was awarded the Grand Prix de Rome, according to the Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1900). Upon his return from Italy in 1819, Benoist was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal and became a professor of organ at the Conservatoire, a post he held until his retirement in 1872. He also served as chef du chant at the Opéra from 1840 and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1851, as noted in the Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, with a Bibliography of English Writings on Music (1886).
Benoist was “chiefly famous as a teacher and organist,” with a remarkable roster of pupils who would become prominent figures themselves, including Lefebure-Wely, Chauvet, Batiste, Vilbac, Bazin, Bizet, Duvernoy, Salome, Dubois, Paladilhe, Anthiome, Chollet, Cohen, David, and Ehrhart, according to the Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1886). His compositions include two operas, Léonore et Félix (1821) and L’Apparition (1848), and four ballets, among them La Gipsy (1839), Le Diable amoureux (1840), Nisida (1848), and Pâquerette (1851). He also published a substantial collection of organ works in twelve books, titled “Bibliothèque de l’organiste,” and a Requiem mass for three men’s voices and a child’s voice with optional organ accompaniment (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900). Beyond his own compositions, Benoist was involved in adaptations, arranging the divertissement for a French production of Rossini’s Othello in 1844, using airs from Mathilde de Sabran and Armida, as detailed in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1922). His influence extended to the visual arts as well, with a portrait of Jean-Philippe Rameau engraved by Benoist after Restout, mentioned in Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique (1837) and Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians (1890).