Lirou, Jean François Espie, Chevalier de

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Lirou, Jean François Espie, Chevalier de

Lirou, Jean François Espie, Chevalier de, French composer and music theorist; b. Paris, 1740; d. there, 1806. He was an officer in the “Mousquetaires du roi” for whom he wrote Marche des Mousquetaires,which was performed until the Revolution. He publ. Explication du système de l’harmonie (1785), the first French theory of harmony that opposed Rameau’s system and sought to establish the laws of chord progressions from the inherent affinities of tonality.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire