Théodore Gouvy

He began piano lessons with a private tutor at the age of eight, and was educated in Sarreguemines (France), developing a keen interest in Classical Greek culture and in modern languages.

Chamber music comprises a large portion of Gouvy's work and accounts in particular for four sonatas in duet form, five trios, eleven quartets, seven quintets, an enormous piano repertoire, several scores for wind ensembles, as well as many melodies and Lieder.

Gouvy was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1894 on the death of Anton Rubinstein, and to the Prussian Academy of Sciences (König-Preussische Akademie) in Berlin in 1895.

During his lifetime, his compositions, and especially his chamber music, were held in high regard and often performed in countries like Germany, Austria, England, Scandinavia, and Russia, rather than France.

Musicians of the first rank such as Johannes Brahms, Carl Reinecke, and Joseph Joachim, who were familiar with Gouvy's music, held it in high regard.

Hector Berlioz wrote in the Journal des débats of 13 April 1851: "[t]hat a musician of the importance of M. Gouvy is still not very well known in Paris, and that so many gnats bother the public with their tenacious buzzing, it is enough to confuse and inflame the naive spirits that still believe in the reason and the justice of our musical manners."

In 1994, his Requiem, with its vigorous Dies iræ, was revived by the Lorraine Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Jacques Houtmann [fr] (who recorded a CD with the work, which appeared the K617 label).