Rue Castil Blaze

François-Henri-Joseph Blaze, known as Castil-Blaze, was a French musicographer, music critic, composer, editor and also a Provençal author in the langue d'oc. After his childhood spent in Cavaillon, he went to Paris to study law but also to learn music. A large part of his activity consisted of adapting French and foreign operas for various stages in the French provinces. Castil-Blaze is the author of several books and articles on the theory of music, its history and the history of the theater. He has launched a series of three books devoted to the three great lyric theaters of Paris: the Opéra, the Théâtre-Italien and the Opéra-Comique. As a composer, Castil-Blaze mainly produced arrangements, the most famous of which is Robin Hood or the Three Balls, an 1824 adaptation of Weber's Freischütz, a work that is ultimately far from the original. Castil-Blaze was also the author of an opera in four acts, Belzébuth ou les Jeux du roi René, of a comic opera in one act, La Colombe, and of several original works, in particular sacred works, including two solemn masses. Castil-Blaze also worked as a publisher, initially to publish his own works, both literary and musical, but he did not limit himself to this: he edited, among others, the works of Beethoven.