Edmond de Coussemaker

At the Dowaai grammar school, he studied violin with Joseph Baudouin and singing and harmony with Moreau, who was an organist at Saint Peter’s Church.

He wanted to improve his religious music; de Coussemaker later wrote a cappella: Kyrie, Sanctus, O Salutaris and Agnus dei, in imitation of Alexandre-Étienne Choron.

Based on a report by Hippolyte Fortoul, Minister of Education and Religion, Napoleon III signed a decree on 13 September 1852 ordering a compilation of popular French poetry to be published.

With the priest Jules Auguste Lemire, he tried the education in Catholic schools.Defending the idea of a constitutional monarchy, he rose to the position of General Counsellor of the Nord (now the French region Nord-Pas-de-Calais).

Volume IV of his Scriptores de musica medii aevi was about to be issued, but, as his daughter Lilia wrote the day he died in Lille on 10 January 1876, it was exhausted by his affairs.

His publications focused on subjects such as the Gregorian chant, neumatic and measured notation, medieval instruments and the theory and polyphony he called harmony.

He established several critical editions of ancient music, including liturgical dramas from the Middle Ages and works by Adam de la Halle.