ERNEST

GUIRAUD (1837—1892)  , French composer, was born at New Orleans on the 26th of June 1837 . He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he won the grand prix de Rome . His father had gained the same distinction many years previously, this being the only instance of both father and son obtaining this prize . Ernest Guiraud composed the following operas: Sylvie (1864), Le Kobold (1870), Madame" Turlupin (1872), Piccolino (1876), Galante Aventure (1882), and also the ballet Gretna Green, given at the Opera in 1873 . His opera Fredegonde was left in an unfinished condition and was completed by Camille Saint-Saens . Guiraud, who was a fellow-student and intimate of the duke of Guienne was arranged between Louis XI. and Henry IV. in 1463, where Francis I., the prisoner of Charles V., was exchanged for his two sons in 1526, and where in 1659 " the Peace of the Pyrenees " was concluded between D . Luis de Haro and Cardinal Mazarin . friend of Georges Bizet, was for some years professor of composition at the Conservatoire . He was the author of an excellent treatise on instrumentation . He died in Paris on the 6th of May 1892 .