Armand Limnander

Baron Armand-Marie Ghislain Limnander van Nieuwenhove (born 22 May 1814 in Ghent, Belgium – d. 15 August 1892 at the Château de Moignanville, a village in the department of Seine-et-Oise, France) was a Belgian composer of choral and orchestral works and church music. Knight of the Order of Leopold, he was the founder and conductor of the choral chamber ensembles Société Symphonique and Réunion Lyrique in Belgium.

Born to a family who formerly belonged to the bar of the late Council of Flanders, ennobled in 1683, Armand Limnander van Nieuwenhoven was raised in the village of Malines. He studied in Freiburg with Louis Lambillotte and in Paris with François-Joseph Fétis, director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. From 1838 to 1847 he conducted with great distinction the direction of an amateur choral society entitled Réunion Lyrique composed of 25 members, for which he wrote a number of musical pieces for male voices and which eventually came to establish his reputation in festivals and competitions.

In 1845, prompted by the desire to work for the stage, he left for Paris. The following year he performed at the chateau des Tuileries, in the presence of King Louis Philippe I, three choir excerpts from his Scènes druidiques with orchestral accompaniment under the direction of Daniel Auber. In 1847 Limnander decided to settle in the French capital, where his dramas and lyrical operas such as The Montenegrins (1848), by librettists Gérard de Nerval and Jules-Édouard Alboize de Pujol, which premiered there on 31 March the following year, was very well received along with his Le Château de la Barbe-Bleue (1851). In the course of 1853 the composer was working on two books, one for the Opera House and the other to the Opéra-Comique of Paris. The first of these pieces Le Maitre à Chanter, a grand opera in two acts set to a libretto of Henri Trianon, choreographed by Joseph Mazilier, successfully premiered at the Academy of Music on 17 October 1853. His opera Yvonne (1859), set to a libretto by Eugène Scribe, premiered at the Theatre de l'Opéra-Comique on 29 November 1859 and was also well received.

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