Editing Adolphe Adam (section)

===Early years===
[[ File:Louis-Adam-father-of-Adolphe-Adam.jpg|Adam's father, Louis, 1834|thumb|upright|alt=middle aged, clean-shaven white man with full head of neatly cut white hair]]
Adam was born in Paris on 24 July 1803, the elder of the two children, both sons, of [[Louis Adam|(Jean) Louis Adam]] and his third wife, Élisa, ''née'' Coste. She was the daughter of a prominent physician, and was a former pupil of her husband, a well-known composer, pianist and professor at the [[Conservatoire de Paris|Paris Conservatoire]].<ref>Pougin (1877), pp. 22–23</ref> Louis Adam gave his son lessons, but the boy was reluctant to learn even the basics of musical theory, and instead played fluently by ear:
{{blockindent|I loved music, but I didn't want to learn it. I would sit quiet for hours, listening to my father play the piano, and as soon as I was alone I tapped on the instrument without knowing my notes. I knew without realising it how to find the harmonies. I didn't want to do scales or read music; I always improvised.<ref>''Quoted'' in Lavignac, p. 3495</ref>|}}
He later said that he never became a fluent sight-reader of a score. His mother concluded that her son needed a rigorous education, and he was sent to a boarding school, the Hix institute in the [[Champs-Élysées]]. It had a high reputation both academically and musically: his elder contemporary (and pupil of Louis Adam) [[Ferdinand Hérold]] had been educated there,<ref>Pougin (1877), p. 24 and (1906), p. 7</ref> and the music master was [[Henry Lemoine]], another of Louis' former students. Adolphe was not an academic child, and recalled in his memoirs how he had recoiled from the study of Latin, which he found "barbaric".<ref>Adam, p. IX</ref> The fall of the [[First French Empire|French Empire]] in 1814–15, and the ensuing economic problems badly affected Louis Adam's income, and to save money his son was sent to a less expensive school. The staff there were capable, but Adam remained as indifferent to musical theory as to Latin.<ref>Pougin (1877), p. 30</ref>
[[File:Léon Riesener - Portrait de François-Adrien Boieldieu.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Adam's professor of composition, [[François-Adrien Boieldieu|Adrien Boieldieu]]|alt=painting of clean-shaven white man, with neat short dark hair]]
At the age of 17 Adam enrolled at the Conservatoire, where he studied the organ with [[François Benoist]], counterpoint with [[Anton Reicha]] and composition with [[François-Adrien Boieldieu|Adrien Boieldieu]]. Adam's biographer [[Elizabeth Forbes (musicologist)|Elizabeth Forbes]] calls Boieldieu the chief architect of Adam's musical development.<ref name=grove>Forbes, Elizabeth. [https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.45660 "Adam, Adolphe (Charles)"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 11 September 2021 {{subscription required}}</ref> He set his student exercises that taught him to compose sustained melodies without showy [[Modulation (music)|modulations]] and other technical devices.<ref>Pougin (1877), pp. 31–32</ref> Adam's father did not want his son to become a professional composer: he would have preferred him to pursue a commercial or academic career, and although he gave Adam board and lodging he refused to subsidise any musical activities.<ref>Pougin (1877), p. 35</ref> By the age of 20 Adam was contributing songs to the Paris [[Comédie en vaudeville|vaudeville]] theatres, writing what he later called "bad romances and worse piano pieces", and giving music lessons.<ref>Adam, p. XVI</ref>

Duchaume, [[timpani|timpanist]] and chorus master of the new [[Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell|Théâtre du Gymnase]], offered Adam an unpaid post playing the [[Triangle (musical instrument)|triangle]] in the orchestra. Adam said that as he would have paid to be allowed to join he was happy to serve without a salary, but he was quickly promoted to a well paid position:
{{blockindent|My entry to the Gymnase was an event in my life. I made acquaintances and friendships with actors and writers; that was, in a word, my starting point. Duchaume died, and I succeeded him as timpanist and chorus master, at a salary of six hundred francs a year. It was a fortune. I no longer gave thirty-sous lessons, and I wrote a little less trashy music.<ref>Adam, pp. XVI–XVII</ref>|}}

In 1824 Adam entered the Conservatoire's most important musical competition, the {{lang|fr|[[Prix de Rome]]|italic=no}}. He gained an honourable mention, and the following year, at his second attempt, he won the second prize.  Forbes writes that Adam derived more benefit from helping Boieldieu with the preparation of his opera ''[[La dame blanche|La Dame blanche]]'', produced at the [[Opéra-Comique]] in December 1825. Adam's piano transcriptions of themes from the opera were published in 1826 and made him enough money to tour the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland in summer 1826 with a family friend, Sébastien Guillié. In Geneva he met the librettist [[Eugène Scribe]], with whom he later collaborated on nine stage works.<ref name=grove/>