Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold, who played a conspicuous part in the elevation and enrichment of the opera comique, though now principally known by only two of his many operas, “Zampa” and “Le Pré aux Clercs,” was born at Paris, Jan. 28, 1791. His father, François Joseph, an Alsatian by birth, was a musician of more than ordinary ability. He had been a pupil of Philip Emmanuel Bach, was a professor of the piano, and also composed music for that instrument. Little is known of the mother except that she sympathized with her son’s talent, which displayed itself at a very tender age, for in his sixth year the precocious boy was writing little pieces for the piano. Upon the advice of Grétry, the composer, whom the parents consulted, he was sent to the Institution Hix, where he had his first lessons in music. He made such rapid progress that in 1806, the year in which his father died, he was encouraged by Fétis and other competent critics to make music his profession. He entered the Conservatory in the same year as a member of the piano class of Louis Adam, his godfather, and won his first honor by taking the piano prize in 1810. He subsequently extended his curriculum, studying harmony with Catel, the violin with Kreutzer, and composition with Méhul, who years afterward said of him on his deathbed: “I can die now that I know I leave a musician to France.” The success which marked his career in the Conservatory is indicated by his securing the Prix de Rome in 1812 with his cantata, “Mlle. de la Vallière.” The coveted honor opened wide the doors of music to him with the added advantages of foreign travel. The next two years were spent by the young musician in Italy, during which period there was a notable change in his style of composition. His first works were a hymn for four voices, two symphonies in C and D, and three quartets in D, C and G minor. The quality of these works, which are now treasured in the Conservatory, gives ample promise that he would have been a successful instrumental composer, but circumstances ordered otherwise. During his stay in Naples he was attached to the court of Queen Caroline as pianist, and to please her majesty he devoted himself to dramatic composition with an enthusiasm which soon aroused an ambition to excel in this class of writing. His aspirations were still further heightened by the success of his first dramatic work, “La Jeunesse de Henri V,” produced in 1815, and to the opera he now devoted himself with an industry that never flagged. Well schooled and practiced as he might have been in instrumental writing, it evidently had limitations which were not agreeable to a composer of strong emotions, vivid imagination and distinctly dramatic tendencies.