Nisard, Théodore (pen name of Abbé Théodule-Eléazar-Xavier Normand)

Nisard, Théodore (pen name of Abbé Théodule-Eléazar-Xavier Normand), Belgian organist and writer on music; b. Quaregnon, near Mons, Jan. 27, 1812; d. Jacqueville, Seine- et-Marne, Feb. 29, 1888. He was a chorister at Cambrai, and also studied music at Douai. He attended the priests’ seminary at Tournai and was ordained in 1835. In 1839 he was appointed director of the Enghien Gymnasium, occupying his leisure with the study of church music. In 1842 he became second chef de chant and organist at St. Germain des Prés in Paris, but he soon devoted himself wholly to literary work. Nisard publ, the first transcription of the Antiphonary of Montpellier (neumes and Latin letter notation from A to P), discovered by Danjou in 1847. Of his numerous books on plainchant the most important are a revised ed. of Jumilhac’s La Science et la pratique du plain-chant (1847; with Le Clercq) and Dictionnaire liturgique, historique et pratique du plain-chant et de musique d’église au moyen âge et dans les temps modernes (1854; with d’Ortigue). He also pubi. De la notation proportioneile au moyen âge (1847), Etudes sur les anciennes notations musicales de l’Europe (1847), Etudes sur la restauration du chant grégorien au XIX^e siècle (1856), Du rythme dans le plain chant (1856), Les Vrais Principes de l’accompagnement du plain-chant sur l’orgue d’après les maîtres des XV^e et XVIe siècles (1860), Des chansons populaires chez les anciens et chez les Français (1867), and L’Archéologie musicale et le vrai chant grégorien (1890; 2^nded., 1897). All of these works were publ. in Paris.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire