Luigi Cherubini: master of theater and sacred music

Life

Trained at the height of Neoclassicism, his long and prestigious career led him to reach full artistic maturity during the Romantic period, representing a monumental linking figure between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Luigi Maria Cherubini was born in Florence in 1760, the tenth of twelve children of Bartolomeo, a harpsichordist and director of the Grand Ducal Chapel. He began studying music at age six with his father and subsequently with the masters Felici, Bizzarri, and Castrucci. He obtained a pension from Grand Duke Peter Leopold to perfect his studies in Bologna with Giuseppe Sarti, who launched his operatic career.

At a very young age, he composed masses and theatrical works. In 1787, he moved to Paris, where he linked his career to the Opéra. There he composed masterpieces such as Lodoïska (1791), Médée (1797), Les deux journées (1800), and Anacréon (1803). His works, characterized by dramatic intensity and contrapuntal rigor, profoundly influenced the French scene.

During the revolution, he lived in Gaillon, taught at the National Guard, and then returned to the theater. In 1805, he was in Vienna, welcomed by Haydn and Beethoven, who esteemed him greatly. Back in Paris, he long directed the Conservatory (1822–1842). He composed famous masses and the two Requiems (1816 and 1836), which remain among his highest sacred works.

He died in Paris in 1842 and is buried in Père-Lachaise. In Florence, the Cherubini Conservatory is named after him. His influence marked both the theater and the European sacred music of the nineteenth century.

Works

He wrote over thirty theatrical works, including Lodoïska, Elisa, Médée, L’hôtellerie portugaise, Les deux journées, Anacréon, Faniska, and Ali Baba. He also composed solemn masses, including the Mass in F major (1808), the Mass for the Coronation of Louis XVIII (1815), masses in C major, and the two Requiems in C minor (1816) and D minor (1836). Among his instrumental works are quartets, chamber music, and cantatas. He also wrote a treatise, the Cours de contrepoint et de fugue (1835).