Toussaint Prévost, known under the pseudonym Théodore Ritter (5 April 1840 – 6 April 1886) was a 19th-century French composer and pianist.
Biography The son of composer Eugène Prévost, he was a student of Hector Berlioz. He began his career as a baritone singer at La Monnaie in Brussels under the name Félix, then studied the piano with Franz Liszt. He quickly became a renowned pianist and began an international career under the name "Théodore Ritter".
A member of the "Société des derniers concerts de Beethoven" (1860), he undertook a concert tour in Canada and the US with the violinist Frantz Jehin-Prume and the operatic singer Carlotta Patti in 1869–1870.
Among others, he was the teacher of Isidore Philipp and Samuel Sanford.
Married with the singer Alice Desgranges; his niece Gabrielle Ritter-Ciampi was also famous as a singer.
A chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (1880), he is buried at cimetière du Père-Lachaise (20th division)His file on the site of the cemetery
He composed numerous pieces for piano and transcriptions, as well as piano versions of L'enfance du Christ and Roméo et Juliette by Berlioz .
Bibliography Émile Maillard: Nantes et le département au XIXe siècle (1891), p. 199, . Henry Charles Lahee: Famous pianists of today and yesterday (1901), p. 335, . Georges d'Heylli: Dictionnaire des pseudonymes (1977), p. 377–378, .
References
External links Théodore Ritter on Data.bnf.fr