Fayolle, Fraçois Joseph Marie

1774-1852

A French writer on music, who was born in Paris, and is known by his articles in connection with the Biographic Universelle, having furnished the greater portion of the biographies, and by his joint authorship of Chpren's Dictionary of Musicians, to which work Fetis was much indebted for information. Fayolle entered the corps des ponts et chaussees in 1792 and became chef de brigade of the Ecole polytechnique on its foundation in 1794. There he studied the higher mathematics and with the assistance of Fontanes translated a large part of the  Eneid. He did much for musical literature, and was well grounded in the rudiments, having studied harmony under Perne and the violoncello under Barni. He wrote much music, but never published any of it. In 1805-1809 his Les quatre Saisons du Parnasse, a literary collection in sixteen volumes, for which he wrote many articles on music and musicians, appeared, and his Paganini et Beriot was published in Paris in 1830. After the defeat of Napoleon, Fayolle went to England, where he supported himself by teaching French and writing for the Harmonicpn. Just previous to the Revolution (1830), he returned to Paris and resumed his old occupation of writing musical criticisms. He died at Ste. Perrine, a house of refuge, in that city. Fayolle also collected materials for a history of the violin, of which, however, only fragments appeared.