Théodore Lajarte (10 July 1826 – 20 June 1890) was a French

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

librarian A librarian is a person who professionally works managing information. Librarians' common activities include providing access to information, conducting research, creating and managing information systems, creating, leading, and evaluating educat ...

, and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

.Huebner 1992.

Early years

Lajarte was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

. His full name has been given as Théodore Édouard Dufaure de Lajarte. He studied at the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), or 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 Ja ...

under

Aimé Leborne Aimé Ambroise Simon Leborne (or Aimé Le Borne) (29 December 1797 – 2 April 1866) was a French composer and music educator, who made his career in Paris. Life Born in Brussels, Leborne was the son of an actor and spent his youth in Versailles ...

and soon thereafter composed a large number of

operettas Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs and including dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, and length of the work. Apart from its shorter length, the ope ...

, none of which have survived.

Librarian and musicologist

He is best remembered for his position as an

archivist An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can cons ...

at the

Paris Opera The Paris Opera ( ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be kn ...

. After his appointment in 1873 as second librarian at the Paris Opera Library, he organized the theatre's historical scores and parts, publishing a chronological inventory of scores under the title ''Bibliothèque musicale du théâtre de l'Opéra'' in 1876 with a corrected and completed edition in 1878. He continued working at the library until 1890.Pitou 1990, p. 734. As a musicologist, he contributed articles on music to newspapers and published reductions for piano and singing of old French operas and ballets, with the first being a reduction of Lully's opera '' Thésée''. Overall sixty-two books in nine series under the title ''Chefs-d’œuvre classiques de l’opéra français'' were issued.

Composer

He was a composer of several works for the theater, including ''Monsieur de Floridor'', a one-act ''

opéra comique ''Opéra comique'' (; plural: ''opéras comiques'') is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular ''opéras comiques en vaudevilles'' of the Théâtre de la foire, Fair Theatres of St Germain and S ...

'' in two tableaux, lyrics by

Charles Nuitter Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...

and

Étienne Tréfeu Étienne Victor Tréfeu (de Tréval) (born Saint-Lô, Manche, September 25, 1821 – died Paris, June, 1903), was a French librettist, song writer and theatre manager. He is best known for his work with Jacques Offenbach. He originally came to pr ...

after

Louis Anseaume Louis Anseaume (; 1721 – 7 July 1784) was a French playwright and librettist from Paris. He contributed the words for operas by André Ernest Modeste Grétry, Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, Egidio Romualdo Duni, Christoph Willibald Gluck, and Fran ...

, first performed on 11 October 1880 by the

Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique () is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular Théâtre de la foire, theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief riva ...

at the second

Salle Favart The Salle Favart (), officially the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique (), is a Paris opera house and theatre, the current home of the Opéra-Comique. It was built from 1893 to 1898 in a neo-Baroque style to the designs of the French architect Louis ...

with Belhomme (Mathurin), Grivot (Floridor) and Mlle Ducasse (Thérèse). He gave the Opéra the one-act ballet-pantomime ''Les Jumeaux de Bergame'', first performed on 26 January 1886 at the

Palais Garnier The (, Garnier Palace), also known as (, Garnier Opera), is a historic 1,979-seatBeauvert 1996, p. 102. opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the ...

,Pitou 1990, p. 1458
''Les jumeaux de Bergame''
on BnF with words after Florian by Nuitter and Mérante and choreography by Mérante, with Mlle Subra (Caroline), very well received. His other works include ''Le Secret de l’Oncle Vincent'' (24 November 1855,

Théâtre Lyrique The Théâtre Lyrique () was one of four opera companies performing in Paris during the middle of the 19th century (the other three being the Paris Opera, Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, and the Théâtre-Italien (1801–1878), Théâtre-Italien). ...

), ''Mam’zelle Pénélope'' (3 November 1859, Théâtre Lyrique), ''Le Neveu de Gulliver'' (22 October 1861, Théâtre Lyrique), ''Le Portrait'' (18 June 1883, Opéra-Comique) and ''Le Roi de Carreau'' (26 October 1883,

Théâtre des Nouveautés The Théâtre des Nouveautés ("Theatre of the New") is a Parisian theatre built in 1921 and located at 24 boulevard Poissonnière (Paris, 9th arr.). The name was also used by several earlier Parisian theatre companies and their buildings, begin ...

). Lajarte died in Paris at the age of 63 and is buried at

Montmartre Cemetery The Cemetery of Montmartre () is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimetière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis in Paris, after the Père Lachaise Cemet ...

Notes

Sources

* Ferrari, Gustave and Marie Louise Pereyra (1954). "Lajarte, Théodore (Édouard Dufaure) de", vol. 5, p. 18, in ''

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...

'', fifth edition, edited by

Eric Blom Eric Walter Blom (20 August 188811 April 1959) was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicographer, music critic and writer. He is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1954). Earl ...

. New York, St. Martin's Press. . * Huebner, Steven (1992). "Lajarte, Théodore (Édouard Dufaure de)", vol. 2, p. 1081, in ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes. The dictionary was first published in 1992 by Macmillan Reference, L ...

'', edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was a British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was published as the first edition ...

. London: Macmillan. . * Lajarte, Théodore (1878). ''Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l'Opéra'', two volumes, corrected edition. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles. Volume
1
an
2
at

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

; volume
1
an
2
at Gallica. * Lavignac, Albert and

Lionel de La Laurencie Lionel de La Laurencie (24 July 1861 – 21 November 1933) was a French musicologist and first president of the 1917 founded ''Société française de musicologie'' (French association of musicologists) from 1917 to 1920 and from 1931 to 1933. ...

(1931)
''Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire''
Paris, C. Delagrave
vol.3, pp. 1788–9 "Théodore de Lajarte (1826–1890)"
* Pitou, Spire (1990). ''The Paris Opéra: An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers. Growth and Grandeur, 1815–1914''. New York: Greenwood Press. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Lajarte, Theodore 1826 births 1890 deaths Musicians from Bordeaux French classical composers French male classical composers 19th-century French musicologists French music critics French librarians Burials at Montmartre Cemetery 19th-century French male musicians