Émile-Joseph-Maurice Chevé

Who was Émile-Joseph-Maurice Chevé?

Émile-Joseph-Maurice Chevé was a French music theorist and music teacher.

Chevé was born in Douarnenez. He entered the Marines at age 16 and qualified there to become a doctor and surgeon. In 1835, he returned to Paris and studied medicine and mathematics. He also visited a course taught by Aimé Paris, who propagated a music notation system inherited from Pierre Galin. He was very attracted to the method, and when he ended up marrying Paris's sister Nanine, he promoted and developed it together with Paris.

From 1844, he gave in Paris more than 150 courses in the method, which was became known as the Galin-Paris-Chevé method. He also edited with his wife a series of textbooks that were used at such schools as the École normale supérieure, the École polytechnique and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

His son Amand Chevé carried forth his interest in the system. Under John Curwen it came into the English-speaking world, and was carried by Lowell Mason into the United States. A hundred years later, the Hungarian music educator Zoltán Kodály adapted the system in his Kodály Method.

He is also the father of Émile-Frédéric-Maurice Chevé, a poet.