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Francis Thomé

French pianist and composer (1850-1909)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ445852 ↗
Source-derived summary

Francis Thomé (18 October 1850 – 16 November 1909), was a French pianist and composer.

He was born in Port Louis, Mauritius, and studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Jules Duprato and Ambroise Thomas. After leaving the Conservatoire, he became well known as a composer of salon pieces and was in demand as a pianist and teacher. His music was particularly successful in the French provinces, and two of his operas were first performed outside Paris. He became popular towards the end of the 19th century as a composer of accompanied poems, but is also known for his stage works, which encompassed various genres, including ballet, pantomime, incidental music (for a wide range of plays), bluettes, and operettas, such as Le Baron Frick (1885), the latter collaboration with Ernest Guiraud, Georges Pfeiffer, and Victorin de Joncières.

References

Sources

Article by David Charlton in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, edited by Stanley Sadie (London, 1992).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Francis Thomé” is french pianist and composer (1850-1909). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Francis, Thomé and French, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1850, 1909, 1885, 1992—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1850-10-18, 1850-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Francis, Thomé and French is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “french pianist and composer (1850-1909)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q445852. VIAF identifies the subject as 12493043. The Library of Congress control number is n88093124. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1850, 1909, 1885 and 1992.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Francis Thomé”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Francis Thomé primary sources, Francis Thomé archive and Francis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Francis Thomé”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Francis Thomé” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.