Edmond de Coussemaker

Charles Edmond Henri de Coussemaker (19 April 1805 – 10 January 1876) 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. Biography (based on article by Damien Top) Jurist and musician Born in Belle into a family of jurists at the start of Napoleon’s Empire, from a child Edmond de Coussemaker proved to be enormously skilled as a singer and pianist. "At the age of ten, he read every type of music at first sight. He learned to play the violin and cello, but his preference made him particularly choose singing." ("À dix ans il lisait à première vue toute espèce de musique. Il apprit à jouer du violon et du violoncelle mais son goût le portrait particulièrement vers le chant.", François-Joseph Fétis in Biographie Universelle des musiciens, Didot, 1860-1865). He continued his studies at the Dowaai grammar school, where he studied violin with Joseph Baudouin and singing and harmony with Moreau, who was an organist at Saint Peter’s Church. In 1825, his father sent him to Paris to study law. In those days La Dame Blanche by Boïeldieu was a huge success there. Simultaneously, de Coussemaker started studying musical composition with Antonin Reicha and improved himself in the vocal arts with Felice Pellegrini, who performed Rossini’s operas in Paris at that time. "Beauty, music, spirit: the Countess Merlin wears three crowns on her forehead of which only one would suffice to eternally adorn the head of a woman." "Beauté, musique, esprit, Mme la Comtesse Merlin porte sur son front trois couronnes dont une seule suffirait à consacrer pour toujours une tête de femme." (Les belles Femmes de Paris et de la province, The pretty Women of Paris and the countryside, 1829). De Coussemaker visited the salon of the pretty creole as well as those of the countesses Méroni and Sparre. The young Fleming met the whole of Paris there: Malibran, Musset, Liszt, Balzac, etc. His Romances and his Quadrilles amazed the Parisian aristocracy during their evenings. His style offered a peculiar synthesis: if La Captive, particularly close to Bellini, is one of his most inspired pieces, others like Les Rossignols borrow much of their vocality from Rossini while Amour et Patrie resembles Méhul most, with a recitative close to Berlioz.