Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Adam, Adolph Charles

Adam, Adolph Charles, son of Louis Adam, born at Paris in 1803, and became pupil at the Conservatoire in 1817, then studied harmony and counterpoint with Reicha, and after-wards formed his style with Boieldieu. His first attempts at composition were fantasias and variations for the piano. In this form he was quite prolific, also in airs and concerted piece- forvaudevilles and operettes, performed at the minor theatres. His first opera, Pierre et Catharine, was performed at the Opera Comique in February 1829, and well received, as evincing talent, and perhaps too great facility. Danilowa, another opera in three acts, produced at the same theatre in 1830, showed still more power. From this time his productions succeeded one another with great rapidity. Some of these were too ephemeral to warrant a hope that Adam's name would live; but in 1833 his Proscrit appeared - a work, says M. F�tis, of more force, dramatic sentiment, and novelty in its ideas, than he had put into any of his earlier efforts. In 1832, he went to London, where he wrote the music of a grand ballet for the Covent Garden Theatre. Adolph Adam still figures among the most active composers for the Opera Comique, and many of his sparkling operas, as "Richard Coeur de Lion," "Le Brasseur de Preston," "Le Postillion de Lonjumeau," &c., enjoy great popularity. He has also composed sacred music, among other pieces one called the "Mass of St. Cecilia." During the past year he composed the "Cantata," at the Opera Comique, in honor of the President Louis Napoleon.