He belonged to that founding generation which established the fame of French horn players and passed it on through a school of its own. In 1788 he joined the orchestra of the Comédie-Italienne as a horn player. In 1797 he moved to the Paris Opéra, and from 1799 he served there as principal horn. In 1801 he, along with the other principal wind players, was released from regular opera duty so that he could devote himself more fully to solo work. From that time on he also played in the “Chapelle Musique”, which had been re-established by Napoleon Bonaparte, said to have been an admirer of Duvernoy.
From 1795 he was also a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire de Musique (alongside, at times, eight other horn teachers). Several distinct schools of horn playing developed there. While a division into 1st and 2nd horn had always existed, the horn player Rodolphe advocated a broad use of the entire range, whereas Kenn and, in particular, Dauprat later argued for a clear separation into cor alto and cor basso. Duvernoy, quite literally, took the middle path: in his printed horn method he too divided the instrument into high and low horn and recommended mouthpieces of different sizes, but as a soloist he championed the “cor mixte”. This meant largely avoiding the extreme high and low registers — the middle range (roughly an octave and a half) was rarely left, with greater emphasis instead placed on cantabile playing.
Duvernoy retired in 1816, though he retained the position of principal horn in the Chapelle Musique until 1830. He died on 19 July 1838 in Paris. Duvernoy's works (12 horn concertos and numerous chamber pieces) were printed not only in Paris but also appeared in Germany, for example with the publishers Simrock and Breitkopf.
Trio No. 3 for Piano, Horn and Violin
This work was written as part of a set of "Trois Trios concertants" for piano, horn and violin after 1820, and was first published by the Paris publishing house Richault. The present edition is the first to be re-edited since the first printing.
