FETIS, François-Joseph. — Musician, historian, and musical critic, b. at Mons on 15 March 1784, d. at Brussels on 26 March 1871. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he returned as professor in 1821 after wandering through the Ardennes.
In 1826 he founded the Revue musicale, and in 1837 he became librarian of the Conservatory. In 1833 he went to Brussels as director of that Conservatory, remaining there until his death. He composed orchestral music, some operas performed with a certain success, sacred pieces including a Requiem, and theoretical works, but above all he wrote on the history of music, with Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliophiles générale de la musique (8 vols., Brussels 1838–44, continued and completed by A. Pougin in 1856–65); Équivoise de l'histoire de l'harmonie (Paris 1840); Notice biographique de Nicolò Paganini (ibid. 1851); Antoine Stradivari (ibid. 1856). A Histoire générale de la musique (5 vols., ibid. 1869–70) stops at the 15th century; in it the abundance of information is not always matched by the reliability of the data. Silverio Mattei