Louis Niedermeyer

Louis Niedermeyer, born Abraham Louis Niedermeyer, was a French composer and music educator of Swiss origin. He was born on 27 April 1802 in Nyon, Switzerland, and died in Paris on 15 March 1861. He was buried in the ninth division of Montmartre Cemetery.

He studied piano in Vienna with Ignaz Moscheles and also studied with Emanuel Aloys Förster. He later sought experience in Rome and Naples, before settling in Paris in 1823.

In Paris, Niedermeyer staged four operas: La casa nel bosco (1828), Stradella (1837), Maria Stuarda (1844), and La Fronde (1853). None achieved particular success. His operatic pastiche Robert Bruce (1846), assembled from music from lesser-known operas by Rossini, with Rossini's permission, and Niedermeyer's own additions, was more successful. His song setting of Alphonse de Lamartine's poem “The Lake” was even more popular.

During the second half of the 1850s, Niedermeyer turned largely to educational and organizational work. He took charge of the Institute of Church Music, founded by Alexandre-Étienne Choron, and reorganized it into a growing educational institution. With Joseph d'Ortigue, he founded La Maîtrise, a journal devoted to church music, and co-wrote the Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Plainsong, published in 1876.

After Niedermeyer's death, the Institute of Church Music was led by his two sons-in-law: the composer Gustave Lefèvre and the organist Eugène Gigout.