Jean Chantavoine

Who was Jean Chantavoine?

Jean Chantavoine was a French musicologist and biographer and the secretary general for the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique.

Chantavoine was born in Paris. He published numerous books and articles, including biographies of Beethoven, Liszt, Saint-Saëns and Mozart.

In 1933, he revealed the existence of Bizet's Symphony in C, housed in the library of the Conservatoire, in an article in the French periodical Ménestrel. Chantavoine also was the first to publish many of Beethoven's manuscript sketches and letters, for example in his 1903 Correspondance de Beethoven. He died, aged 75, in Mussy-sur-Seine.