François Giroust

First page of François Giroust's Regles de composition.

François Giroust (10 April 1737 – 28 April 1799) was a French composer. He was born in Paris, where he was the last maître of the Chapelle royale before the French Revolution. He died, aged 62, at Versailles.

Biography

After having studied at the Notre-Dame de Paris with Louis Homet (1691-1767) until 1748 and afterwards with Antoine Goulet, Giroust got appointed as maître de musique (Kapellmeister) at the cathedral of Orléans, where he stayed until 1769. He was very much appreciated by his employers. He also became the leader of the music academy of Orléans (1757-1765), which became a big yet temporary success soon after his appointment.

Two of his works won both 1st and 2nd place in a contest for composers of the Concert Spirituel, organised by the Tuileries in Paris, 1768. Because of this, he got appointed as kapellmeister at the church of the Saint-Innocents in Paris.

In 1775 he became kapellmeister at the Chapelle Royale at Versailles under Louis XVI's reign. In 1780 he got appointed as surintendant of the same chapel, a post he kept until 1792. After some financial hardships he became a concierge at the Palace of Versailles, where he died on the 28th of April 1799.

Giroust is well known for his many revolutionary pieces, among which the Hymne des Versaillais is the most famous. Most of his masonic work has been lost. Most of his other works have been saved by his widow Marie-Françoise de Beaumont d'Avantois, who was a singer at the same court.

Works

• 6 masses, including the Coronation Mass for Louis XVI (31 June 1776) and the Missa pro defunctis for Louis XV.
• 70 grands motets.
• Rituel Maçonnique Funèbre "Le Déluge" (1784).
• 14 oratorio's (partly lost).
• 12 Magnificat settings for the cathedral at Orléans.
• Télèphe (opera, lost except for the overture).
• Regles de composition (a notebook on music theory).
• Various revolutionary songs.

References

• USA recording of his Motets and Missa Brevis on Westminster Hi-Fi XWN 18544, circa 1960.