Hyacinthe Jadin


Hyacinthe Jadin was a French composer who came from a musical family. His uncle Georges Jadin was a composer in Versailles and Paris, along with his father Jean Jadin, who had played bassoon for the French Royal Orchestra. He was one of five musical brothers, the best known of whom was Louis-Emmanuel Jadin.

Life and career

Jadin was born in Versailles. At the age of 9, Jadin's first composition, a Rondo for piano, was published in the Journal de Clavecin. By the age of thirteen, Jadin had premiered his first work with the Concert Spirituel.
Jadin took a job in 1792 as assistant rehearsal pianist at the Theatre Feydeau. In this year he composed the Marche du siège de Lille, commemorating the successful resistance of the citizens of Lille when besieged by Austrian forces.
In 1794, Jadin published an overture for 13 wind instruments entitled Hymn to the 21st of January. The piece commemorated the one-year anniversary of the execution of Citizen Capet. In 1795, he began teaching a female piano class at the Paris Conservatoire.
From 1795 until his death Jadin suffered from tuberculosis. At the time of his death, he was impoverished.

Works

While chamber music formed a large part of Jadin's creative career, he is most well known for his progressive style of piano composition. Jadin's works anticipated the music of Franz Schubert; his piano sonatas in particular display a proto-Romanticism, which in parts both rejected and extended the heritage of his Classical predecessors.

Orchestra