Publications

The influential music critic and music educator François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871) published the first edition of his Biographie universelle between 1835 and 1844. The dictionary is one of the most impressive single-author music reference works of the 19th century. The original eight volumes provide detailed biographical entries on Western European musicians. The second edition is expanded by a two-volume bibliographical supplement, compiled by Arthur Pougin between 1878 and 1880. The Biographie universelle is testament to Fétis’s personality: he had notoriously strong opinions and was unafraid to express them. Fétis was in an unparalleled position to write a comprehensive biography of musicians. In 1827, he founded the Revue musicale, one of the earliest and most influential specialist music journals of the 19th century, and from 1833 until his death he served as the Director of the Brussels Conservatory. Fétis had a large network of musical colleagues across Europe, and corresponded personally with many of the subjects featured in the Biographie universelle. The Biographie universelle provides an essential window into 19th-century French and European musical life, as distilled through the viewpoint of one writer at the center of that culture.