His three most successful works were Le sorcier (1764), Tom Jones (after Henry Fielding, 1765), and Ernelinde, princesse de Norvège (1767).

[2] For a time Philidor was among the leading opera composers in France, and during his musical career produced over 20 opéras comiques and two tragédies lyriques.

[4] Philidor started playing regularly around 1740 at the chess Mecca of France, the Café de la Régence.

But nine years of practice, with a great variety of players, had authorized him to look for neither superior nor equal; and when, in 1755, a match was arranged between the pupil and his master, who was still at the height of his strength, the result placed the crown firmly and indisputably upon the head of Philidor.

[8] In 1771 and 1773, Philidor briefly stayed in London to play at the Salopian coffee house, Charing Cross and at the St. James Chess Club.

Here, Philidor encountered George Atwood, a famous mathematician, physician and lecturer at Cambridge University.

"[9] Henry Bird records: Of the players who encountered Philidor, Sir Abraham Janssens, who died in 1775, seems to have been the best.

Atwood, one of Pitt's secretaries, came next; he was of a class which we should call third or two grades of odds below Philidor, a high standard of excellence to which but few amateurs attained.

One of the most interesting features of Atwood as a chess player is that he recorded and preserved some of his games, an unusual practice at that time.

Philidor, both in England and France, was largely recognized in each of his fields and had a lot of admirers, protectors and friends, such as the French philosophers Voltaire, Rousseau and the famous English actor David Garrick (1717–1779).

"[12] Also interesting is GM Boris Alterman's opinion on Philidor's play: Five hundred years ago, chess was different from today.

...[13] In the same article, Alterman also noticed, analyzing the game Count Brühl–Philidor, F, 0–1, London 1783, that Philidor understood very well modern concepts like the power of passed pawns, bad and good pieces, space advantage, open files, pawn structure and the importance of center.

[15] The book was such an advance in chess knowledge that, by 1871, it had gone through about 70 editions and had been translated into English, Spanish, German, Russian and Italian.

More precisely Philidor said: Mon but principal est de me rendre recommandable par une nouveauté dont personne ne s'est avisé, ou peut-être n'a été capable; c'est celle de bien jouer les pions; ils sont l'âme des Echecs : ce sont eux-mêmes qui forment uniquement l'attaque et la défense et de leur bon ou mauvais arrangement dépend entièrement le gain ou la perte de la partie.

[16] Translation: My main purpose is to gain recognition for myself by means of a new idea of which no one has conceived, or perhaps has been unable to practice; that is, good play of the pawns; they are the soul of chess: it is they alone that determine the attack and the defense, and the winning or losing of the game depends entirely on their good or bad arrangement.

[17] Early critics of the Analyse du jeu des Échecs include those of the Modenese School (Ercole del Rio, Lolli or Ponziani), who in contrast to the French, advocated a free piece play, gambit openings and tactical complications; they also found some of the variations reported in the Analyse to be unsound (in particular those related with ...f7–f5 push in the Philidor Defence: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 f5).

Some of Philidor's disciples—Bernard, Carlier, Leger, and Verdoni, who met at the Café de la Régence under the name of the Société des Amateurs—also criticized his work.

Although Philidor agrees to lose the match to help out, by distraction he nonetheless wins the game, although all turns out well for the lovers in the end.