Émile Paladilhe was born in Montpellier. He was a musical child prodigy, and moved from his home in the south of France to Paris to begin his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris at age 10. He became an accomplished pianist, and was the youngest winner of the Prix de Rome, three years after Bizet, in 1860. For a time Galli-Marié was his lover, and she helped create some of his works. Paladilhe married the daughter of the librettist Ernest Legouvé. He formed a friendship with the elderly Charles Gounod.
He wrote a number of compositions for the stage, a symphony, over a hundred mélodies, piano works, and a wide range of sacred music, including cantatas, motets, masses, chorales, and a noted oratorio, Les Saintes-Marie de la mer.
His opera Patrie! of 1886 was his greatest success, and was one of the last grand operas to premiere at the Paris Opéra. It was a piece d'occasion, created for a gala in honour of the French colony in Monaco, but had a Flemish-nationalist theme.[1] The librettists were Victorien Sardou and Louis Gallet[2]
A few of Paladilhe's works for solo woodwind and solo voice are still performed today, the most notable being his Solo pour hautbois, alternatively titled Solo de concert, written in 1898.
^The Cambridge companion to grand opera David Charlton - 2003 p300 "The Flemish patriots Rysoor and Karloo seek to cast off the yoke of oppression. Karloo is the lover of Dolores, Rysoor's wife. ... Another difference between the two works is that whereas Paladilhe accords considerable musical weight to ...
^Le guide musical 54 1908 "La semaine dernière, nous avons eu, au Théâtre royal français, la première représentation de Patrie, grand-opéra en cinq actes, poème de Victorien Sardou et Gallet, musique de Paladilhe, qui fut exécuté pour la première fois au théâtre "
