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Emmanuel Chabrier
January 18, 1841 - September 13, 1894
born in Ambert, Puy-de-Dôme, France, composed during the Romantic period
Biography
Although music seems to have been his passion all along, it was not until nearly the age of 40 that Chabrier turned to composition as his full time career. When he finally did this, he crafted works characterized by brilliance, wit, and vivid harmonic, rhythmic, and orchestral coloring.

As early as age 6, Chabrier began piano lessons under the tutelage of a Spanish refugee named Saporta. At 10, he attended the Lycée Impérial at Clermont Ferrand, where he continued his keyboard studies and began to try his hand at composition. Upon the insistence of his father, however, he relegated music to be his pastime; after two years in Paris at the Lycée Louis le Grand (or the Lycée Saint Louis -- biographers disagree on which is the case), he began to study law. He continued also to take piano lessons and studied counterpoint and fugue, but when he took his law degree in 1862, he went to work for the Ministry of the Interior, where he worked for 18 years. During this time, he associated with the painter Manet and the poet Verlaine and fellow musicians including Duparc, d'Indy, Fauré, and Messager. On December 27, 1872, he married Marie Alice Dejean.

In 1879, he made his first visit to Germany in the company of Duparc; a performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in Munich so moved him that he determined to quit the law and devote his life to music.