Louis Niedermeyer facts for kids
Abraham Louis Niedermeyer (born April 27, 1802 – died March 14, 1861) was a famous musician. He was a composer from Switzerland who later became a French citizen.
Niedermeyer mostly wrote church music, which is music for religious services. He also composed a few operas, which are plays where the story is told through singing. He was also a music teacher. He took over a music school called École Choron, which was later renamed the École Niedermeyer de Paris. This school focused on teaching church music. Many important French musicians, like Gabriel Fauré and André Messager, studied there.
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Life and Music Career
Louis Niedermeyer was born in Nyon, Switzerland, in 1802. His father was a music teacher from Germany who had moved to Switzerland. When Louis was 15, his father sent him to Vienna to study music. There, he learned to play the piano from Ignaz Moscheles. He also studied how to compose music with Emanuel Aloys Förster.
Later, he continued his studies in Rome with Vincenzo Fioravanti. Fioravanti was the choirmaster for the Pope's Chapel in 1819. Niedermeyer then studied in Naples with Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli.
While in Rome, he met the famous composer Gioachino Rossini. Rossini became his friend and encouraged him to write operas. Niedermeyer's first opera was called Il reo per amore, which means Guilty for Love. It was first performed in Naples in 1820 and was quite successful. After finishing his studies, he returned to Switzerland.
Le Lac (1820)
In 1820, Niedermeyer created a musical piece called Le Lac. This piece was based on a very famous poem by Alphonse de Lamartine with the same name, Le Lac. Turning such a well-known poem into music was a big challenge. However, Niedermeyer did it so well that Lamartine himself praised him.
Many people tried to add a sad tune to the feelings in these lines. Only one composer succeeded: Niedermeyer put this poem into music in a very touching way. I heard this song and saw the tears it caused.
Camille Saint-Saëns, another famous composer, said that Niedermeyer's Le Lac was very important for music.
Niedermeyer was a pioneer when he wrote Le Lac... he created a new type of art. It was similar to the German Lied, which is a type of song. The great success of this work opened the way for Charles Gounod and others who followed him.
Working with Rossini
Like his friend Rossini, Niedermeyer moved to Paris in 1823 when he was 21. Rossini encouraged him to keep writing operas. However, Niedermeyer's later operas did not become as famous.
His second opera, La casa nel bosco (The House in the Woods), was first performed in 1828. Some critics liked it, but many people did not notice it. Feeling disappointed, Niedermeyer moved to Brussels for about a year and a half. There, he started teaching music.
He then came back to Paris. He composed his third opera, Stradella. The story for this opera was written by Emile Deschamps and Emilien Pascini. It premiered on March 3, 1837, and critics really liked it.
Later, he composed Marie Stuart. This opera was based on a story by Theodore Anne. It was first performed in Paris on December 6, 1844.
After Marie Stuart, Niedermeyer went to Bologna to work with his friend Rossini. They worked together on Robert Bruce (1846). This was Rossini's third and last pastiche. A pastiche is a musical work made up of parts from other works. Niedermeyer helped by writing the important French words for the songs.
His last opera was La Fronde, which was about a historical event called The Fronde. It was first performed on May 2, 1853, but it was not successful.
François-Joseph Fétis, a music writer, said about La Fronde:
La Fronde was not well-received and only had a few performances. It was Niedermeyer's last try at writing operas. After this final disappointment, he focused on a project he had wanted to do for a long time. He decided to bring back the church music school that Choron had started. He wanted to dedicate himself to it, just as Choron had before him.
Church Music and Teaching
In the last years of his life, Niedermeyer slowly stopped writing operas. He started focusing mainly on music for churches and other vocal music.
As early as 1840, Niedermeyer and his friend, Prince de la Moskowa, wanted to bring back older music. They wanted to rediscover music from the Baroque and Renaissance periods. This included composers like Palestrina, Lassus, and Victoria. Together, they created a group called the Société des Concerts de Musique Vocale, religieuse et Classique. This means the Society of Vocal, Religious, and Classical Music Concerts.
Because of this work, Niedermeyer greatly helped to bring back religious music in France.
The name Niedermeyer is always connected with the rebirth of religious music in France. Church choirs had almost completely disappeared during the 1789 Revolution. Their return was made difficult because church property was taken away. Also, the rich families who used to support them had left the country... Despite these problems, Louis Niedermeyer started a Society of Vocal and Religious Music in 1840. His student, Prince de la Moskowa, helped him.
This society performed music from the 1500s and 1600s. From 1843, these songs were published in an eleven-volume collection.
The way these performances were done was not exactly like modern music studies. They included notes about how fast to play and how loud. They also had what were called 'corrections' to the music. Even so, we must see Niedermeyer as a pioneer of polyphonic music in France. This was fifty years before the famous performances by the Chanteurs de St-Gervais, which Charles Bordes led and Debussy admired so much.
In 1846, Niedermeyer received a special award called the Légion d'Honneur. This was for his efforts, and Prince de la Moskowa had recommended him for it.
In October 1853, Niedermeyer reorganized and reopened a school. It was known as the École Choron, named after Alexandre-Étienne Choron, who had died in 1834. The school was later renamed the École Niedermeyer de Paris. It is still open today.
Many important composers received their music training at the École Niedermeyer.
His School of Religious Music, known as École Niedermeyer, was a boarding school for boys. Its goal was to train organists and choir singers. This was to improve the quality of church music in France. The school's success can be seen in the fame of some of the musicians who trained there: Gabriel Fauré, Eugène Gigout, Albert Périlhou, and André Messager.
In 1857, Niedermeyer published a book about plainchant, which is a type of church singing. He also started a journal called La Maitrise. This journal shared writings and examples of early church music.
Shortly before he died, he published a guide for using organs in church music. It was called Accompagnement pour Orgues des Offices de l'Église.
Louis Niedermeyer passed away in Paris in 1861.
See also
In Spanish: Louis Niedermeyer para niños
