Frédéric Viret

Frédéric Viret was a French choirmaster, composer of sacred music and leader of a well-established society of amateur male and female choristers of high vocal range and very rare quality among most choristers in Paris. Besides being an autodidactic painter, a poet and amateur photographer, he was a remarkable musician who sought and found inspiration in the depths of his soul.

A pupil of the masters of the Church of Saint-Merri and Saint-Roch, he was also kapellmeister of the Imperial Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois from 1854, with several scholarly associations appointing him a founding member of the Société des sciences industrielles, Arts et Belles lettres de Paris and the Société libre des Beaux-Arts. Praised for his sensitivity, he was admired for his fine character, the warmth of his singing and the beauty of his voice.

At sixteen he was deemed capable of directing the choir at Saint-Merri. He conducted masses performed by an orchestra composed of one hundred and fifty artists together with scholar J. B. Stiegler, a member of the Bavarian Academy of Music whom he had met in Paris and accompanied to Germany while he perfected in the art of singing, and organist Johann Peter Cavallo with whom he had published Les Veillées des Salons, amusical magazine of piano music and singing scores.

Among the works that have most contributed to his reputation are:

• Les Chants du Psalmiste (4th collection of psalms), a compendium of songs containing the first collection of the Psalms of David for four male voices.
• Six messes solennelles, for three and four voices.
• Soixante motels, almost all unpublished excerpts from the repertory of the Imperial Church St-Germain l'Auxerrois.
• Un recueil de cantiques à Marie.
• A bord d'un vaisseau, grand lyrical symphony for four male voices without accompaniment.
• L'Egypte, ode symphonic for four male voices and female voices, without accompaniment.
• Les Pionniers du genre humain, grand cantata for four male voices and female voices without accompaniment.
• Les Veillées des Salons, acollection of melodies and cantilenas with piano accompaniment.
• Trente choeurs for four male voices (4th collection of psalms) without accompaniment, a work honored with a gold medal.