A musician born in Tarascon in 1723, canon at the cathedral of Nîmes, Charles Gauzargues, despite being practically unknown, achieved the feat of becoming maître de musique at the Chapelle royale of Versailles, the culmination of a rapid and exemplary career. Celebrated in the eighteenth century as a "virtuoso" and a "learned composer", his name nevertheless sank into oblivion with the fall of the monarchy and the French Revolution. His fall from grace, as for many court musicians of the time, makes it difficult to reconstruct his career. The first biography devoted to this composer, a representative of great French music, the book follows the young Gauzargues step by step from Tarascon to Nîmes, where he taught at the cathedral, and then to Versailles where he took his place as maître de musique at the Chapelle of Louis XV. Deposed by the Revolution, he ended the century ruined. Throughout his life, he pursued a career as a musician and clergyman, and supported numerous trials typical of life under the Ancien Régime. He left us two treatises on harmony and composition, of very modern conception, as well as a motet over which hangs the shadow of Rameau – works presented and analysed here for the first time.

Youri Carbonnier is a lecturer in modern history at the University of Artois (Arras), Centre for Research and Studies in History and Societies (CREHS - EA 4027).

Jean Duron is a researcher at the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles.