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Niedermeyer was above all a precursor in writing Le Lac ... he created a new genre, of a superior art, analogous to the German Lied, and the resounding success of this work paved the way for Charles Gounod and all those who followed his lead. [6] "
Like Rossini, Niedermeyer settled in Paris (at the age of 21, in 1823). Encouraged by the Italian composer, he continued composing operas but never encountered success.
His second opera, La casa nel bosco (The House in the Woods) premiered in 1828. While François-Joseph Fétis praised it, the critique was mixed and La casa nel bosco went largely unnoticed. Disappointed, Niedermeyer moved to Brussels where he lived for 18 months and started teaching music. [2]
He came back to Paris and composed his third opera, Stradella with a libretto written by Emile Deschamps and Emilien Pascini. It premiered on 3 March 1837 and was lauded by critics. [7]
He later composed Marie Stuart (on a libretto written by Theodore Anne [8] ) which premiered at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris on December 6, 1844.
After Marie Stuart, Niedermeyer moved to Bologna to collaborate with his friend Rossini on the assembly of Robert Bruce (1846), Rossini's third and last pastiche; Niedermeyer "provided the all-important French texts with their characteristic tone color and harmonies". [9]
His last opera, La Fronde (about The Fronde), premiered on 2 May 1853 and was unsuccessful. [2]
François-Joseph Fétis writes:
La Fronde was received coldly and there were only a few performances. It was Niedermeyer's last attempt in his dramatic career. After this final disappointment, he focused on realizing a project he had had for some time, and restore the church music institution that had been founded by Choron, and devote himself to it as Choron had before him. [10]
In the last decades of his life, Niedermeyer gradually abandoned his operatic career and devoted himself primarily to sacred and secular vocal music.
As early as 1840, Niedermeyer and his friend, Prince de la Moskowa, had supported a revival of Baroque and Renaissance music and the rediscovery of composers such as Palestrina, Lassus or Victoria. Together, they established the Société des Concerts de Musique Vocale, religieuse et Classique. [11]
In this capacity, Niedermeyer had a strong influence in the revival of religious music in France:
The name Niedermeyer is indissolubly linked with the renaissance of religious music in France. Church choirs had almost entirely disappeared during the 1789 Revolution. Their subsequent revival had been hampered by the confiscation of clerical property and that of the émigré nobility who had supported them in the past ... Despite these unfavourable circumstances, Louis Niedermeyer founded a Society of Vocal and Religious Music in 1840, with the help of his 'pupil' Prince de la Moskowa.
This society performed sixteenth- and seventeenth-century works, and from 1843 these were published in an eleven-volume anthology.
The details of these performance did not, understandably, conform all that closely to modern musicological practice, containing as they did tempo indications (generally slow), dynamic markings and so-called 'corrections' of the harmony. Even so we must acknowledge Niedermeyer as a pioneer of polyphonic music in France, fifty years before the famous performances of the Chanteurs de St-Gervais, conducted by Charles Bordes and so much admired by Debussy. [4]
In 1846, Niedermeyer was awarded the Ordre national de la Légion d'Honneur for his efforts, on the recommendation of Prince de la Moskowa. [11]
In October 1853, Niedermeyer reorganized and re-opened the school then known as the École Choron (named after Alexandre-Étienne Choron, [12] who died in 1834). It was later renamed the École Niedermeyer de Paris and remains opened to this day.
Several major composers received their musical training from the École Niedermeyer:
His École de Musique Religieuse, known as École Niedermeyer, was a boarding school for boys. Its purpose was to train organists and choristers in an attempt to raise the standard of church music in France, and its success can be measured by the reputations of some of the musicians who received their training there: Gabriel Fauré, Eugène Gigout, Albert Périlhou and André Messager. [12]
In 1857, Niedermeyer published a treatise on plainchant (1857) and founded La Maitrise, a journal that presented writings about and examples of early church music. [13]
Shortly before his death, he published a manual for the use of organs in church music, Accompagnement pour Orgues des Offices de l'Église. [14]
He died in Paris in 1861.
The Conservatoire de Paris, also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music and dance, drawing on the traditions of the 'French School'.
Alexandre-Étienne Choron was a French musicologist. For a short time he directed the Paris Opera. He made a distinction between sacred and secular music and was one of the originators of French interest in musicology.
Charles Edmond Henri de Coussemaker was a French musicologist and ethnologist focusing mainly on the cultural heritage of French Flanders. With Michiel de Swaen and Maria Petyt, he was one of the most eminent defenders of the Dutch language in France.
Pierre-Louis-Philippe Dietsch was a French composer and conductor, perhaps best remembered for the much anthologized Ave Maria 'by' Jacques Arcadelt, which he loosely arranged from that composer's three part madrigal Nous voyons que les hommes.
Robert Bruce is an 1846 pastiche opera in three acts, with music by Gioachino Rossini and Louis Niedermeyer to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz. The plot concerns the defeat of the forces of Edward II of England by Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, and is adapted from Walter Scott's History of Scotland. The music was stitched together by Niedermeyer, with the composer's permission, with pieces from La donna del lago, Zelmira, and other Rossini operas. The work was premiered on 30 December 1846, by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier. The audience may not have noticed, but the orchestra included for the first time a recently invented instrument, which later came to be known as the saxophone.
Rosine Stoltz was a French mezzo-soprano. A prominent member of the Paris Opéra, she created many leading roles there including Ascanio in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, Marguerite in Auber's Le lac des fées, the title role in Marie Stuart, and two Donizetti heroines, Léonor in La favorite and Zayda in Dom Sébastien.
Marie Stuart is a grand opera in five acts composed by Louis Niedermeyer to a libretto by Théodor Anne loosely based on events in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. It premiered at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris on 6 December 1844 with Rosine Stoltz in the title role.
Alexandre Édouard Goria was a French virtuoso pianist and composer recognised among amateurs enthusiasts for his numerous salon pieces of different styles, which enjoyed great success at their time. The number of fancy arrangements and transcriptions by Goria of selected motifs from great operas proves the composer's great facility and the popularity of his name, which had commercial value. He was a favorite artist of lovers of brilliant music, concert and salon music.
Paul-Louis Rougnon was a French composer, pianist and music educator.
The École Niedermeyer is a Paris school for church music. It was founded in 1853 by Louis Niedermeyer as successor to the Institution royale de musique classique et religieuse, which had been established and run by Alexandre-Étienne Choron between 1817 and 1834. Several eminent French musicians studied at the school, including Gabriel Fauré, André Messager and Henri Büsser.
Louis Antoine Ponchard was a 19th-century French operatic tenor and teacher.
Gustavo Carulli, called Gustave Carulli in French publications, was a composer, musician and music teacher.
Joseph Louis d'Ortigue was a French musicologist and critic. A specialist in liturgical music and a conservative Catholic of ultramontane and royalist leanings, he was a close friend of both Berlioz and Liszt. His most influential work was Dictionnaire liturgique, historique, et theorique de plain-chant et le musique d'église, but he also wrote for many of the most prominent periodicals of the day, including Journal des débats and Le Ménestrel where he was the editor-in-chief from 1863 until his sudden death at the age of 64.
Antoine Aimable Elie Elwart was a French composer and musicologist.
Victor Frédéric Verrimst was a French double-bassist and composer.
Louis-Barthélémy Pradher was a French composer, pianist and music educator.
Eugène Wintzweiller was a French composer, winner of the second Grand Prix de Rome in 1868.
Joseph Wackenthaler was a French Kapellmeister from 1819, an organist from 1833 to 1869 at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, and a composer.
Louis-Augustin Richer was a French singer, singing professor and composer. He was a member of a family of musicians from Versailles who also had close ties to the family of André Danican Philidor. He gained prominence as a singer at the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI and also served as Maître de musique for the courts of the Duke of Chartres and the Duke of Bourbon. After the abolition of the monarchy during the French Revolution, Richer became a professor at the Paris Conservatory.
Charles-Henri Plantade was a French classical composer and singing professor. His compositions included several operas, numerous romances, sacred music, and a sonata for harp. He taught singing at the Conservatoire de Paris and was the maître de chapelle to the courts of Louis Bonaparte in Holland and Louis XVIII in France. From 1812 to 1815 he was also the singing master and stage director of the Paris Opéra. Plantade was born in Pontoise and died in Paris at the age of 75. His elder son, Charles-François Plantade, was also a composer.