Xavier Boisselot

Dominique-François-Xavier Boisselot (3 December 1811 – 8 April 1893) was a French composer and musical instrument manufacturer. He is the author of the opéra-comique in three acts Ne touchez pas à la reine to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Gustave Vaëz. Boisselot left many art songs, including Villanella, whose text was written for Boisselot by Théophile Gautier in 1837. Biography Born in Montpellier, the younger son of Jean-Louis Boisselot, he learned the basic elements of music in Marseille, where his family had settled after 1823. In 1830, he moved to Paris, entered the Conservatory and there followed a course in harmony. After some time studying counterpoint and fugue under François-Joseph Fétis, and composition under Jean-François Le Sueur, whose second daughter, Louise Eugénie Félicité Lesueur (1808–1884), he would marry on 17 October 1833, he won second prize in 1834 and the Prix de Rome in 1836 for his cantata Velleda, which was performed at the Conservatoire on 8 October that same year. Despite the success of his musical debut, his career as a composer was short-lived. Boisselot had already assumed the management of his family business in Marseille and Barcelona, followin