Edouard Du Puy

The colorful composer, singer, and musician Édouard Du Puy was an important figure in Scandinavian music of the early 19th century. His exploits included service in the Danish Royal Guard in the Battle of Copenhagen against the British. His compositions include several attractive concertos and a singspiel, Ungdom og Galskap, that remains popular. The 21st century has seen new attention paid to his music, and his bassoon concerto appeared on a 2025 recording by bassoonist Jaakko Luoma. Du Puy was born around 1770 in Corcelles-Cormondrèches in the Principality of Neuchâtel (now the municipality of Neuchâtel, Switzerland). His mother was probably an unmarried kitchen assistant named Dupuis; he later changed it to the more aristocratic-sounding Du Puy. Du Puy's talent was spotted by an uncle, Gaspard Fritz, who was a city musician in Geneva. By 1786, he had outgrown his uncle's teaching and was sent to Paris, where he studied under Jan Ladislav Dussek. In 1789, he was named concertmaster at the court of Heinrich of Prussia in Rheinsberg, where he remained for four years; he also continued his education with the composer Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (son of Johann Friedrich Fasch). Still in his early twenties, Du Puy gave up his steady job in favor of the life of a freelance violinist, traveling through Poland, the Holy Roman Empire, and Sweden, where he eventually settled and was put on the payrolls of the royal chapel and the Royal Swedish Opera. He had an affair with the ballerina Sophie Hagman. Du Puy was banished from Sweden by King Gustav IV after making positive statements about Napoleon. Du Puy stopped next in Copenhagen, where his appeal to women was seemingly undiminished; his paramours included Princess Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the wife of Denmark's Crown Prince and the mother of King Frederick VII of Denmark. Beginning in 1800, he was active in Copenhagen as a composer, a violinist, and an opera singer who could handle roles from tenor to bass ranges. His singspiel (a comic opera with spoken dialogue) Ungdom og Galskap ("Youth and Folly") was composed in 1806. He joined the Danish Royal Guard and saw action in the Battle of Copenhagen during the Napoleonic Wars, but when his affair with the Princess came to light, she was divorced by her husband, and Du Puy was banished again. He returned to Stockholm, where Gustav IV had been overthrown in a coup. In 1812, he was reinstated at the Swedish Royal Opera, and he continued to compose -- a dramatic and virtuosic Bassoon Concerto in C minor dates from that year. Du Puy also wrote chamber music, concertos for several other instruments, another opera, a ballet, a Requiem in C minor, and other works. He died in Stockholm on April 3, 1822. Du Puy's music has rarely been recorded, but in 2025, bassoonist Jaakko Luoma released a recording of his bassoon concerto, and Ungdom og Galskap has been recorded several times. ~ James Manheim, Rovi