Eugène Ketterer Explained

Eugène Ketterer (7 July 1831 – 18 December 1870) was a prolific French composer and pianist who was known for his numerous salon arrangements of contemporary opera arias.

Career

Born in Rouen, France, of an originally Alsatian family, Ketterer became a student at the Paris Conservatoire in his early youth, where he studied with Antoine François Marmontel. He won second prize for solfège in 1847 and a premier accessit in 1852. After his graduation until his death in Paris in 1870, he appeared constantly as a pianist winning wide repute for his fantasies and drawing-room pieces, of which he wrote a large number, but only a few of which are still in the repertoire.

The list of Ketterer's works gives an excellent overview on the world of opera in France at the time, as many of these works are transcriptions of popular opera arias, many still famous today.

Many of Ketterer's transcriptions were subsequently arranged for piano 4-hands by other arrangers like Joseph Rummel (1818–1880) or Édouard Mangin. "Les Étoiles" is a collection of 18 (later 19) such arrangements (1875).

Evaluation

Hervé Lacombe classifies Ketterer among the authors of what he calls derivative products, referring to all the scores of varying degrees of quality drawn (by other composers) from fashionable operas and which "testify to uses proper to the 19th century and to the extraordinary hold operas had on the French musical world" (page 1034). For Lacombe, Ketterer "mass-produced pieces used to shine in salons and concert halls and provide the consumer with nice airs skilfully arranged" (page 1045). He adds further below, about his fantasia on L'Africaine, that "Ketterer selects the most conventional elements of Meyerbeer's score ... and treats them conventionally.".[1]

Compositions

Piano works

Songs

Chamber works

Posthumous works

Notes and References

  1. Hervé Lacombe, Histoire de l'Opéra français. Du Consulat aux débuts de la IIIème République, chapter 19 p. 1033-1080
  2. On Félicien David's comic opera Lalla-Roukh.
  3. Louis Alfred Mutel, born in Rouen 16 October 1820, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, 23 February 1892.
  4. Victor Caussinus (1806–1900).
  5. Ferdinand Lavainne (1814–1893).
  6. After François-Auguste Gevaert's opera.
  7. (Federico and Luigi).
  8. After François Bazin)'s opera, libretto by Alfred Delacour and Eugène Labiche.
  9. Maximilien Graziani and Rodolfo Mattiozzi, as well as Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter and Arthur Saint-Léon).
  10. After Mozart's Das Veilchen K. 476.
  11. Jules Cohen (1835–1901).
  12. With versions for piano, organ or orchestra. There also seems to exist a Marche solennelle No. 2 for piano and organ, and a Marche solennelle for piano and organ, by Ketterer and Auguste Durand.
  13. Tito Mattei (1841–1914).
  14. Charlotte Jacques (1835–1914).
  15. Transcription of a song to words by Paul Bocage) and with music by Henri Cellot (1827–1879).
  16. libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges
  17. Jean-Jacques Masset (1811–1903).

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