Chrétien Urhan

Chrétien Urhan (Baptised as Christian Urhan; 16 February 1790 – 2 November 1845) was a French violinist, violist, organist and composer. Career outline Born in Montjoie, Urhan’s father first introduced him to the violin. He was first publicly mentioned in 1804 by Joséphine de Beauharnais, having replaced a violinist for a performance of Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, at the young age of 14. He was sent to work in Paris where he took instruction from Jean-François Le Sueur, master of the chapel of the Tuileries Palace. He also learned from prominent teachers such as François Habeneck, Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Rode. He was invited to join the imperial chapel as a violinist in 1810. In this period the young Urhan shared lodgings with his friends, the harpist Franz Anton Stockhausen (father of Julius Stockhausen), and the painter Carl Joseph Begas the elder (who was studying with Antoine-Jean Gros from 1813 to 15). In 1815, through a quartermaster in the Prussian army of occupation, Urhan and Stockhausen (who corresponded with Ludwig van Beethoven) obtained a score of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and set it before Habeneck, with the result that the work was introduced to Paris. The tw