Prix de Rome Laureates 1803-1968
(See red footnotes at bottom of page)

1. Berlioz states (Memoires of Hector Berlioz, Trns. D. Cairns, pg.76) that Rifaut was the mediocre pianist who attempted to play Berlioz’s Bacchanale for his Institute Examination and floundered in the middle until it completely broke down. The judges (Cherubini, et al,) condemned the work as unplayable. Ironically, two years later, Rifaut was appointed as Professor of Accompaniment at the Conservatoire. Rifaut was at the Villa Medici (Prix de Rome) from Dec. 20, 1821 to Dec.31, 1823)
    
2. Elwart authored Histoire de la Socièté des Concerts [op. cit., p. 277];Elwart was known as an orator, especially eulogies, but Berlioz, who died first, was unimpressed by his ability as a speaker. He said of Elwart "If you are to speak at my funeral, I prefer not to die." (http://www.hberlioz.com/Paris/BPTriniteF.html) Elwart was born in Paris, of Polish parents. As a boy of ten, he sang in the choir at the Church of St. Eustache. At thirteen, he ran away and joined a small theater. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1852. There he started a series of competitive concerts among the students, which continued six years, and afforded excellent practice for both composition and solo work. In 1831. he received first prize for composition, and in 1834 the Prix de Rome. From 1832 to 1834 he was assistant professor of composition, and on his return from Rome two years later, took up this work again, becoming professor of harmony in 1840. He was also director of the St. Cecilia Society concerts. He resigned his post in the Conservatory in 1871 and died six years later. His compositions include the oratorios, Noah and La Naissance d'Eve; several operas, Les Catalans being the only one performed; the music for Euripides' Alcestis; also some overtures, symphonies, chamber music and sacred music. For all his compositional talent, he is best remembered for his writings, theoretical and literary. including Theorie Musicale; Traits due contrepoint et de la fugue; and Le Chanteur accompagnateur. He also contributed musical articles to Paris periodicals. (Source: Music Encyclopedia (online); http://www.tribalsmile.com/music/article_165.shtml )
   
 
3. Father of Ernest Guiraud winner of the Prix de Rome in 1859
    
4. Berlioz in preparation for a concert with the Weimar orchestra in 1843, spoke highly of Kapellmeister Chelard saying, "…like a true artist, and also compatriot and old friend, did everything possible to help me achieve my ends. In my honor, Chelard and Lobe had hunted up all the extra string players they could find to augment its normal strength…" After Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique, Chelard "declared for him the March to the Scaffold came before everything else…" [op. cit, pp.288-290]
    
5. Panseron was professor of Harmony at the Conservatoire, a conductor, author, and opera composer. He was among the first to publicly criticize Berlioz writing an unfavorable review of his concert given May 26, 1828 that included 2 overtures, Resurrexit from his Mass, and the Sacred March of the Magi. (op. cit., p.102-103).
    
6. Jean Conte, a student of Michele Enrico Carafa; Samuel David, a student of Fromental Halévy; and Jules Massenet, a student of Ambroise Thomas, as Prix de Rome laureates, all competed in 1867 to provide a one-act work for the Opéra-Comiqué. Massenet finished well ahead of Conte and David and was given priority. The result was La Grand’ Tante. It was performed 17 times. (Massenet: A. Chronicle of His Life and Times, D. Irvine, pg.48)
   
   Samuel David (1838-1896) also served on Thomas' sub-committee for music selection for the 1878 Exhibition Universelle in Paris. (Irvine, p. 101)
    
7. Composer, teacher, and Prix de Rome laureate of 1819, Fromental Halévy, commented on Prix de Rome laureates' works sent from Rome to the conservatoire in Paris. Of Cohen's Misse sollennelle, he said, "The style is not always as elevated as the subject demands, but he has verve and warmth. He is to be congratulated." (Jordan, Ruth, Fromental Halévy: His Life and Music, (New York:1994), pg. 166.
    
8. Of Deléhelle, Halévy said, "We invite him to show more application to his studies and not indulge a tendency for facile writing which is detrimental to his composition and nips in the bud those good qualities which we recognize in him." (Ibid.) 
    
9. Charlet had been sick in Rome and sent only a incomplete manuscript. Halévy said of it, "His incomplete work reveals clarity and intelligent understanding of orchestration." (Ibid.)
    
10. Halévy warned Calibert, "Do not be facile." (Ibid.)
     
11. Androt arrived in Rome in January 1804 after winning the very first Prix de Rome for music. He caught plague and died in August of the same year. At his funeral a De profundis written by Androt was sung. (Ibid., Pg. 11)
     
12. Father of Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) Prix de Rome 1913 and sister Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) acclaimed teacher of composition
     
13. Grave of Lili and Nadia Boulanger (Montmartre Cemetery, Paris [Photo by C. Hughes, Feb. 1999))
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17) "The score of Berlioz's Sardanapale survives in fragmentary form: we have only the grand finale--or a draft of it --preceded by part of the third and final aria." (Source: David Cairns, Berlioz, Volume I, p. 408). A 14-page manuscript fragment was found in 1906 by Paris Conservatoire librarian Julien Tiersot. (Source: "Berlioz and The Prix de Rome of 1830" by Peter Bloom, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 34, No. 2, Summer 1981, p.280) The required cantata, for  solo voice and orchestra, used as its text the poem by Jean-François Gail (1795-1845), Sardanapale. The story of Sardanapalus was well known in France since Lord Byron's titular drama published in 1821 and the painting, Mort de Sardanapale, by Eugène Delacroix. Sardanapalus was the last king of Assyria who lived a sensual and hedonistic lifestyle. The epitaph on Sardanapulus's tomb supposedly read: "I have eaten, drunk and amused myself, and I have always considered everything worth no more than a fillip." (Source: www.jameshymanfineart.com) When his kingdom was falling to the Medes and Babylonians, Bloom says, "Sardanapalus ordered the construction of a huge funeral pyre, heaped his royal wreath and wardrobe upon it, and consigned his concubines, his eunuchs, and himself to the flames." (Bloom, op. cit, p. 284).
 

18) Marie-Emmanuel-Augustin Savard was the son of Marie-Gabriel-Augustin Savard (1814-1881), a teacher of solfege, harmony and thoroughbass at the Paris Conservatoire. As a pedagogue, he published at least three works on music theory and practice. Jules Massenet was a pupil of the elder and a teacher of the younger. "M. Savard [the elder] was an extraordinarily erudite man," says Massenet. "His heart was as large as his learning was extensive. It is pleasant to recall that when I wanted to work at counterpoint, before I entered the class in fugue and compositions . . .M. Savrard was quite willing to give me lessons. I went to his house to take them and every evening I went down from Montmartre where  I lived, to Number 13, Rue de la VIelle-Estrapade, behind the Pantheon."

19) Charles Lenepveu was  a pupil of Ambroise Thomas and ultimately a member of the French Institut from 1896 to 1910. In 1878, he served on the jury for the Cressent Award. He succeeded Ernest Guiraud as professor of composition at the Conservatoire on January 1, 1894.

20) Both Busser and Bloch were students of Ernest Guiraud. They both had tried for the Prix de Rome one year earlier in 1891 but, as Irvine says, "none of the settings of Edouard Adenis's poem Amadis was considered worthy of the grand prize." (Irvine, p. 181) They were both awarded second prizes.

21) In July 1830, at the same contest in which Hector Berlioz won the Prix de Rome, Alexandre Montfort "was awarded Second Grand Prize 'à la majorité absolue des voix.'"  (Source: "Berlioz and The Prix de Rome of 1830" by Peter Bloom, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 34, No. 2, Summer 1981, p.287) Says Bloom, "The [Institut] recording secretary's notes show that Berlioz received 23 Grand-Prize votes [of 25 votes cast] and Montfort one. . .[but]  Montfort received 17 Second Grand-Prize votes." (Bloom, op. cit., p. 287)

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