Jules Massenet

Jules Emile Frédéric Massenet (Montaud near Saint-Étienne, 12 May 1842 — Paris, 13 August 1912) was a French composer, pianist and music teacher. Massenet was the most prolific French opera composer between 1870/1871 and the First World War, the belle époque of the Third French Republic, and both artistically and commercially the most successful. Over four decades Massenet wrote more than 30 operas, of which 25 were performed.

Massenet was born in Montaud near Saint-Étienne as the youngest of eleven children in the family of Alexis Massenet (1788-1863) and Adélaïde Royer de Marancour (1809-1875). His father was a former officer and ran a business that manufactured metal tools. Although he had ten older brothers and sisters, his mother, herself a pianist, took the time to give Jules piano lessons. In 1848 the family moved to Paris.
Later he studied solfège with Augustin Savard and harmony with Napoléon-Henri Reber. From November 1861 he studied composition with Ambroise Thomas and Charles Gounod.

Initially Massenet wrote piano and orchestral works. In 1861 he published his Grande Fantaisie de concert sur le «Pardon de Ploërmel» de Giacomo Meyerbeer for piano. His orchestral works are generally less well known than his operas. He wrote various compositions for orchestra, of which his seven suites are the best known, including the Scènes Alsaciennes, Scènes Pittoresques, Scènes Napolitaines and Scènes de Féerie.