Benoît, Peter (Léonard Léopold) (1834-1901)

Belgian composer. He was a pupil of François Fétis at the Brussels Conservatory. He became conductor at a Flemish theatre and was keenly interested in Flemish national music as distinct from that influenced by French composers. He travelled in Germany and visited Paris, but tended more and more towards an indigenous type of music. His first opera was produced in 1857.

Works Opera French opera Le Roi des aulnes (on Goethe's ‘Erl- King’; 1859); Flemish operas The Mountain Village, Isa, Pompeja.

Church music Te Deum, Messe solennelle, Requiem.

Oratorios Lucifer (1865), The Scheldt (1868).

Cantatas Petite Cantate de Noël and many Flemish cantatas.

Other incidental music to Flemish plays.