Hérold, (Louis Joseph) Ferdinand (1791–1833)

French composer. He had considerable success with the operas Zampa (1831) and Le Pré aux clercs (1832), but is best known today for the ballet La Fille mal gardée (1828).

Hérold was born in Paris and studied under his father, the pianist François Joseph Hérold (1755–1802). Later he was taught by François Fétis, Louis Adam, Charles-Simon Catel, and Étienne Méhul, and won the Prix de Rome in 1812. In Rome and Naples, where he became pianist to Queen Caroline, he wrote several instrumental works, and the comic opera La Jeunesse de Henri V. Returning to Paris in 1816, he collaborated with François Boieldieu in the opera Charles de France, and in 1817 began to produce operas of his own. He was accompanist at the Théâtre Italien from 1820 until 1827, when he married Adèle Elise Rollet and became choirmaster at the Opéra. About this time he began to suffer seriously from tuberculosis, from which he died.

Works Opera Les Rosières (1817), La Clochette (1817), Le Premier Venu, Les Troqueurs (1819), L'Amour platonique, L'Auteur mort et vivant (1820), Le Muletier (1823), Lasthénie, Le Lapin blanc, Vendôme en Espagne (with Auber), Le Roi René (1824), Marie, L'Illusion, Emmeline (1829), L'Auberge d'Auray (with Carafa), Zampa (1831), Le Pré aux clercs (1832), Ludovic (unfinished, completed by Halévy).

Ballet Astolphe et Joconde (1827), La Sonnambule (1827), Lydie, La Fille mal gardée (1828), La Belle au bois dormant (after Perrault; 1829).

Other incidental music for Ozaneaux's Dernier Jour de Missolonghi; two symphonies; four piano concertos; cantata Mlle de la Vallière, Hymne sur la Transfiguration; three string quartets; two sonatas, variations, rondos, and other pieces for piano.