François Joseph Fétis

Born Mar. 25, 1784, in Mons; died Mar. 26, 1871, in Brussels. Belgian musicologist and composer.

Fétis studied under L. Cherubini and F. A. Boieldieu at the Paris Conservatory. From 1827 to 1835 he published the newspaper Revue musicale, which he had founded in Paris. In 1833 he became director of the Brussels conservatory and chorus master at the Belgian court.

Head of the Belgian and the French schools of musicology, Fétis was the author of fundamental works on the history and theory of music and on musical lexicography. Especially noteworthy are his biographic dictionary of musicians (vols. 1–8, 1837–44) and General History of Music (vols. 1–5, 1869–76), which are valuable study sources despite Fétis’s occasional conservatism. Fétis is also the composer of operas, symphonies, quartets, and other musical compositions.