Edmond de Coussemaker

Edmond de Coussemaker , born the April 19th 1805 with Bailleul, dead the January 10th 1876 with Lille. Lawyer of formation, his activity of musicologist and ethnologist mainly centered on the inheritance of the French Flanders, it is at the sides of Michel de Swaen and Maria Petyt one of the most significant defenders of the Dutch-speaking culture of France.

Biography

Lawyer and musician

Born with Bailleul with the advent from the Empire in a family from the middle-class from dress, Edmond de Coussemaker showed as of childhood a great skill as singer and pianist. “At ten years it read any species of music at first sight. He learned how to play of the violin and of the violoncello but its taste particularly carried it towards the song. ” (François-Joseph Fétis in Universal Biography of the musicians, Didot, 1860-1865) It continued its studies with the college of Douai, was formed with the violin with Joseph Baudouin and with the song and the harmony with Moreau, organist of Saint-Pierre. His/her father sent it in 1825 to grant his Paris where triumphed the White Lady over Boïeldieu. In parallel, it approached the composition with Antoine Reicha, and improved in the vocal art with Felice Pellegrini, creator in France of the operas of Rossini.

" Beauty, music, spirit, Mrs. the Countess Merlin carries on her face three crowns of which only one would be enough to devote for always a head of femme." (Beautiful women of Paris and the province, 1829). De Coussemaker attended the living room of the beautiful Creole like those of the countesses Méroni or Sparre. Young Flemish crossed All-Paris there: the Malibran, Musset, Liszt, Balzac… Its Lovesongs and its Quadrilles enchanted the evenings of the Parisian aristocracy. Their style offers a curious synthesis: if the Prisoner, of a grace all bellinienne, remains undoubtedly one of her best inspirations, others, like the Nightingales, borrow their vocality from Rossini while Amour and Patrie is connected rather with Méhul, with récitatif near to Berlioz.

To the advent of the “king-citizen”, the nobility which sponsored the artistic institutions was relegated to the background and the upper middle-class replaced it little by little with the theater. Its diploma obtained in December 1830, it followed a lawyer training course to Douai, resuming his studies of counterpoint as from 1832 with Victor Lefebvre. Wishing to raise the level of the sacred music, following the example Alexandre-Etienne Choron, initiator of the revival maîtrisien since 1807, Coussemaker a Mass wrote as various motets has cappella : Kyrie, Sanctus, O Salutaris and Agnus dei.

Thanks to Luce-Varlet, the artistic life was intense in Douai. Coussemaker set up at the summer a 1832 Société of musical emulation in order to make play full orchestra its own works and those of local type-setters: Victor Lefebvre, Henri Brovellio, Charles Choulet or Amédée Thomassin. It occurred within the framework in the concerts of winter organized by this company and de1840 at 1843. Police chief of the Philharmonic Company of Douai in charge of the recruitment of the artists, it invited of it prestigious such violonist Henri Vieuxtemps or the hautboïste Stanislas Verroust. December 5th, 1832, one heard of him a Lovesong with two votes, an Air varied for the oboe, Chant with four votes has cappella and an Air of soprano with accompaniment of orchestra. It left also handwritten a Treaty of composition and running away and an apparently disappeared Treaty of harmony. Edmond de Coussemaker sang regularly in the area (Bailleul, Surface-on-the-Lily, Cassel…), interpreting its own melodies or lyric airs in vogue. He there even made represent his opera Diamond lost in 1835 but left unfinished Imogène. In 1836, in its native city, it was combined in Marie Ignard of Mouillère, to which it had dedicated a whole series of lovesongs during their engagement. Its works, if they do not shine by a talent out of the commun run, firmly remain built and reflect the tastes of the Restauration. It influenced considerably the regional production towards a Gothic Romantisme of Style troubadour. Called with the judging functions of Peace to Bergues in 1843, then named in 1845 with the court of Hazebrouck, he became finally judge with Lille in 1858. In 1874, he is elected mayor of Bourbourg, city in which its last residence is.

De Coussemaker was in liaison with the intellectual elite of Europe, mainly of Germanic culture, like the brothers Grimm or the baron Kervyn de Lettenhove. Decorated with the Legion of honor in April 1847, holder of the Order of Saint-Gregoire Large the, member of more than twenty-five learned societies, it was amongst other things associated royal Académie of Belgium, correspondent of the Institut of France, correspondent of the Académie of the Inscriptions and the Humanities. Its imposing library comprised 1600 pounds invaluable and of many musical instruments, of which a part is currently with the Royal Bibliothèque of Brussels.

The Flemish Committee of France

On a report/ratio of Hippolyte Fortoul, Minister for the State education and worships, Napoleon III signed on September 13rd, 1852 a decree ordering the publication of a general Collection of popular poetries of France (… which was born unfortunately never). Taking as a starting point the Barzaz Breiz: Popular songs of Brittany of Theodore Hersart of Villemarqué, published since 1839, of Coussemaker - as a correspondent of the Committee of the Language, the History and Arts of France - colligea the sung poetry of its area. It is only on this collection of the Popular songs of the Flemings of France published in Ghent three years later that the fame is based which he enjoys among the movements folklorists.

De Coussemaker founds in 1853 the Flemish Comité of France, called to slow down the disappearance of the Flemish dialect spoken in French Flanders. With the priest Jules Auguste Lemire, it tried to maintain the teaching of Dutch in the Catholic schools, in particular in Bailleul, but because of a secularization of teaching made compulsory by the law, the catholic hierarchy lost of its influence. This carried a fatal blow to the survival of the Flemish .

Constitutional monarchist, near to certain liberals, Congratulated on Lamennais, the count de Montalembert, the chansonnier Béranger, orleanist whom it put in music, it remained attached to his country viscéralement and occupied the post of General adviser of the Northern . Volume IV of Scriptores of musica medii aevi was under press at the time when, used by work, “our poor father finished the weapons with the hand to render service to the canton”, as his/her Lilia daughter wrote it the very same day her death to Lille on January 10th, 1876.

Many of its files and manuscripts disappeared at the time of the fire of the town hall of Bailleul in 1918.

Contribution musicologic

It is first of all the reading of the Musical Revue of the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis which woke up its interest for the Middle Ages. The first work musicologic of Coussemaker goes back to 1835. Still today, by their rigor and their precision, they remain references as regards medieval musicology: Memory on Hucbald and its treaties of music (1841), Histoire of I' harmonizes with the Middle Ages (1852), the harmonists of the (1864), complete Œuvres of the trouvere Adam of the Market (1872). Its compilations Scriptorum de Musica Medii aevi , 1864-1876, continue that of the prince-abbot Martin Gerbert. Among its historical writings, it is primarily necessary to retain Troubles monk of the 16th century in the maritime Flanders (1560-1570) , published in 1876.

It was one of the first to be devoted to research on the music of the Middle Ages and its many publications tackle subjects the such Gregorian chant, the neumatic and measured notation, the medieval instruments, the theory and the polyphony (which it called harmony ). What distinguishes Coussemaker from Fétis, it is the very broad culture of the latter which enables him to synthesize great quantities of information in order to work out abstract theories. The approach of Coussemaker is however more precise, more scientific and less speculative.

Starting from the musical sources that it collected, it presented hardly more than the descriptions based on an attentive observation, which was worth many criticisms on behalf of those to him which regarded it more as one advised collector that like a historian. It showed the scientific value of the facsimiles of manuscripts, but also carried out its own transcriptions in modern notation. Its Scriptorum of musica , compilation of writings (Latin majority) several theorists of the old music, is its most important work. It carried out also several critic editions old music, including liturgical dramas of the Middle Ages and works of Adam of the Market.

Writings

Hucbald monk of St Armand and his treaties of music (1839-1841)
History of the harmony to the Middle Ages (1852)
Popular songs of the Flemings of France (1856)
harmonists of the XII and XIII centuries (1864)
complete Works of the trouvere Adam of the Market (1872)
Scriptores of musica medii aevi (4 delen) (1864-1876)

Recordings

Edmond de Coussemaker, Lovesongs and songs . Maryse Collache, soprano, Damien Top, tenor, Eric Hénon, piano. Symphonic Productions SyPr 041 2005.

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