Jacques-Marie Beauvarlet-Charpentier

He was born in Lyon to Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier, then organist of the hospice de la Charité, and the singer Marie Bérol. His date of birth varies: 3 July 1766 for the authority record of the BnF and for Fétis, and the MUSEFREM database of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles quotes the baptismal record, dated the following day at Saint-Nizier, which says he was “born on the 3rd”; the Wikipedia article gives 31 July. He was five when the family moved to Paris, where his father became organist of Saint-Victor and Saint-Paul. According to Fétis, his father taught him harpsichord and composition.

In 1788 he deputised for his father at Saint-Paul. In September 1794, a few months after his father’s death, an artist obtained permission for Desprez, Séjan, “Charpentier fils” and other well-known organists to play the organ of the former cathedral of Notre-Dame, which the ban on playing was leaving to deteriorate.

His best-known piece dates from these years: Victoire de l’armée d’Italie ou Bataille de Montenotte, for fortepiano or organ, offered “to citizeness Buonaparte”. The BnF dates it to 1796 from an advertisement of 12 September that year; the Wikipedia article places it around 1797. Fétis also lists a Bataille d’Austerlitz (1805), a Bataille d’Iéna (1807) and a one-act opera, Génois ou le Jeune Aveugle, given in 1802 at the Théâtre des Jeunes Artistes.

The sources disagree about his first posts. Fétis writes that he succeeded his father as organist of Saint-Paul “after the churches were re-established”, that is, in Paris. The Wikipedia article has him succeed his father at Saint-Paul in Lyon; no other source consulted mentions such a post in Lyon, and his father had left the city in 1771. After the Revolution he became titular of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and then, in 1815, of Saint-Eustache, according to the Wikipedia article; the list of organists of Saint-Eustache names him, without dates. Fétis, by contrast, calls him organist of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the last years of his life.

Most of his organ pieces were published at his own address, without date. The Six Magnificats pour l’orgue, “very easy to perform on the fortepiano”, are dedicated to the clergy of the French Empire. The Trois Messes pour les grandes solennités are based on Henry Du Mont’s plainchant and each ends with a Domine salvum fac regem. The Six Hymnes des principales fêtes de l’année, avec fugues et autres versets, Op. 8, are preceded by the Easter sequence and followed by the Inviolata, the Ave verum and a Carillon des morts, as in his father’s work. The Quinze Noëls, varied for organ or piano, end with Grétry’s air “Où peut-on être mieux qu’au sein de sa famille”.

The Wikipedia article also mentions two Te Deums, organ masses and a Journal d’orgue published from 1822; Fétis mentions a Méthode d’orgue followed by the complete Sunday office and a Te Deum for solemn feasts. He also published romances, contredanses and varied airs, such as those of La Soirée amusante, around 1810. He died in Paris in 1834, on 7 September according to the BnF and the Wikipedia article, in November according to Fétis.