Ferdinand Gasse Ferdinand Gasse Ferdinand Gasse (1780 – ca. 1840) was a French violinist and composer. Born in Naples, Gasse, who was probably related to the architect Louis-Silvestre Gasse, born eight years later in Naples, attended the violin class of Pierre Rode at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1798. He also had lessons with Rodolphe Kreutzer, the dedicatee of Beethoven's famous Kreutzer-Sonata. He also studied harmony with Charles-Simon Catel and musical composition with François-Joseph Gossec. From 1801 Gasse was violinist at the Paris Opera. In 1805 he received the deuxième Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata "Cupidon pleurant Psyché" (after a
Rodolphe Kreutzer the Paris Opera, and from 1817 he conducted there too. He died in Geneva and is buried in Paris at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. He was well known for his style of bowing, his splendid tone, and the clearness of his execution. His compositions include nineteen violin concertos and forty operas. His best-known works, however, are the "42 études ou caprices" (42 "études" or "capricci", 1796) which are fundamental pedagogic studies. Rodolphe Kreutzer Rodolphe Kreutzer (15 November 1766 – 6 January 1831) was a French violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer of forty French operas, including "La mort d'Abel" (1810). He