Pierre Gaviniès

Pierre Gaviniès (11 May 1728 – 8 September 1800) was a French violinist and composer.

At the age of thirteen, Gaviniès had already attracted attention, alongside Joseph-Barnabé Saint-Sevin, performing a duet by Jean-Marie Leclair in the Concert Spirituel. Much in demand in Paris, he declined the offer of a position at the Chapel Royal. As a young man he was involved in a sexual liaison with a noble lady of the Court, which earned him a sentence of one year in prison. During the 1760s he achieved unprecedented success through his compositions, his concerts and as professor of violin. One of his pupils was violinist and composer Abbé Alexandre-Auguste Robineau.

He had a long and fruitful collaboration with the Concert Spirituel, as concertmaster from 1744 and as part of the management from 1773 to 1777 alongside François-Joseph Gossec and Simon Leduc. During this period, he brought the symphonie concertante (the French form of the sinfonia concertante) to the peak of its development. Giovanni Battista Viotti described him as the French Tartini, a singular compliment.

He published his sonatas with only figured bass accompaniment, in the traditional manner, and these compositions represent the stylistic transition from late baroque music to classical.

Following the French Revolution, on 22 November 1795 he became a professor at the newly-founded Conservatoire de Paris alongside Pierre Rode, Pierre Baillot and Rodolphe Kreutzer.

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