but his death, from tuberculosis, in 1802 left Hérold free to do so. In 1806, when he was nearly 16, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied piano with Adam, harmony with Charles-Simon Catel and violin with Rodolphe Kreutzer. In 1810 he won the conservatoire's first prize for piano, playing one of his own compositions. In 1811 he was admitted to the composition class of Étienne Méhul, who esteemed his talents greatly, saw him as his successor, and became a much-loved father-figure to him. During 1812 works by Hérold were performed publicly for the first time. They included a piano concerto given on 6 April at the Théâtre Italien with the composer as soloist. In October 1812 Hérold was awarded France's premier musical prize, the Prix de Rome, which he won with a cantata, La Duchesse de la Vallière. The prize carried with it liberally subsidised residence and tuition at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, where Hérold went in 1813. There, he composed his first symphony and an anthem. Like his father, Hérold suffered from tuberculosis, and the climate of Rome did not suit him; he moved south to Naples in 1815. In Naples, Hérold won the approval of Joachim Murat, whom Napoleon had installed as King of Naples. Hérold was engaged as court pianist to Murat's wife, Queen Caroline, and music teacher to their daughters. While in Naples, Hérold was commissioned in 1814 to write his first opera, La gioventù di Enrico quinto (The Boyhood of Henry V), to a libretto from Alexandre Pineux-Duval's play La jeunesse de Henry V about Prince Hal of England. It was premiered in January 1815 at the Teatro del Fondo before Murat's court, with Manuel García in the title role. Shortly after this, the Napoleonic empire began to disintegrate, and Hérold left Naples, making a circuitous journey back to Paris. He went via Rome and Venice to Vienna, where he met Antonio Salieri, whom he admired, and heard operas by Mozart. Return to Paris Hérold arrived back in Paris in August 1815, where he took the post of maestro al cembalo (deputy conductor and répétiteur) at the Théâtre Italien. In 1816 the composer François-Adrien Boieldieu invited him to collaborate on a new opera Charles de France, to which Hérold contributed the second act. In the same year he composed the opera Les Rosières, dedicated to Méhul, produced successfully at