Eugène Ketterer

Born in Rouen, France, of an originally Alsatian family, Ketterer became a student at the Paris Conservatoire in his early youth, where he studied with Antoine François Marmontel. He won second prize for solfège in 1847 and a premier accessit in 1852. After his graduation until his death in Paris in 1870, he appeared constantly as a pianist winning wide repute for his fantasies and drawing-room pieces, of which he wrote a large number, but only a few of which are still in the repertoire.

The list of Ketterer's works gives an excellent overview on the world of opera in France at the time, as many of these works are transcriptions of popular opera arias, many still famous today.

Many of Ketterer's transcriptions were subsequently arranged for piano 4-hands by other arrangers like Joseph Rummel (1818–1880) or Édouard Mangin. "Les Étoiles" is a collection of 18 (later 19) such arrangements (1875).

Hervé Lacombe classifies Ketterer among the authors of what he calls derivative products, referring to all the scores of varying degrees of quality drawn (by other composers) from fashionable operas and which "testify to uses proper to the 19th century and to the extraordinary hold operas had on the French musical world" (page 1034). For Lacombe, Ketterer "mass-produced pieces used to shine in salons and concert halls and provide the consumer with nice airs skilfully arranged" (page 1045). He adds further below, about his fantasia on L'Africaine, that "Ketterer selects the most conventional elements of Meyerbeer's score ... and treats them conventionally.".[1]

• Free scores by Eugène Ketterer at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)