Théodore Ymbert

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The cover of one of Ymbert’s fable settings

Henri Théodore Ymbert (born 10 July 1827 in Auteuil, Yvelines, died 22 September 1894 at Bourbonne-les-Bains) was a French lawyer and composer.[1]

Life and career[edit]

Théodore Ymbert was the son of the dramatist Jean-Gilbert Ymbert, who also practised as a legal administrator.[2] Following in the family profession of law, he also studied composition under Auguste Barbereau.[3] His musical activity in Paris over the years 1858 – 69 consisted for the most part in settings for voice.[4] Two works were his most successful: the music for the one-act comic opera Les Deux Cadis (1861);[5] and his Sept Fables de la Fontaine, which was preferred to Jacques Offenbach’s settings of La Fontaine's Fables when it was first performed in 1862,[6] and which continues to be performed.[7]

Professionally Ymbert gained his doctorate in law and practised in the Court of Appeal of Paris.[8] As well as writing on both legal and musical subjects, he also collaborated in the revision of a number of administrative reference works. Among the latter was the Dictionnaire des formules ou mairie pratique contenant les modèles de tous les actes d'administration municipal (1880)[9] and the Dictionnaire général d'administration (1884),[10] for which he was qualified after serving as mayor of Bourbonne-les-Bains between 1873-8 and then as a deputy judicial officer.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Library of Congress
  2. ^ Geneanet
  3. ^ Auguste Barbereau biography, Musica et Memoria
  4. ^ BNF data base
  5. ^ Les Deux Cadis, script
  6. ^ Frits Noske, French Song from Berlioz to Duparc, Dover Publications, New York 1970, note 293, p.429
  7. ^ A performance of La Montagne qui Accouche in Warsaw on 7 May 2017
  8. ^ Le Contemporain: revue d'économie chrétienne 1876, p.972
  9. ^ World Cat
  10. ^ Archived online