Félicien-César David

Félicien-César David (born April 13, 1810, Cadenet, France—died August 29, 1876, Saint-Germain-en-Laye) was a composer whose music opened the door for the Oriental exoticism that was to become a fixture in French Romantic music.

David was choirmaster at the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral at Aix-en-Provence (1829) and in 1830 studied at the Paris Conservatory. The following year he joined the socialist brotherhood of the Saint-Simonians, becoming their main artistic figure and composing chants for their services. From 1833 to 1835 he preached their doctrines in the Middle East.

In his later music, David incorporated recollections of the music he had heard in Jerusalem, Cairo, and Syria. In 1844 he produced his “symphonic ode” Le Désert. Resembling an oratorio bordering on opera and embodying Arabic melodies, it was a highly evocative, enormously successful work. Of his five operas, Lalla Roukh (1862) maintained its popularity for 40 years. David also wrote other symphonic odes, songs, and chamber works. His music, admired by Hector Berlioz and Camille Saint-Saëns, foreshadowed the Orientalism of Georges Bizet’s Djamileh (1872), Léo Delibes’s Lakmé (1883), Giuseppe Verdi’s Aïda (1871), and other Romantic operas.