Beffara, Louis-François

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Beffara, Louis-François

Beffara, Louis-François, French writer on music; b. Nonancourt, Eure, Aug. 23, 1751; d. Paris, Feb. 2, 1838. He was Commissaire de Police in Paris from 1792 to 1816. He left his rare collection of books and MSS to the city of Paris. Practically all of these were burned during the Commune in 1871, but a few are preserved in the Opéra library and at the Bibliothèque Nationale. He wrote a Dictionnaire de l’Académie royale de Musique (seven vols.) and seven vols, of rules and regulations of the Académie (Grand Opéra); also a Dictionnaire alphabétique des acteurs, etc. (three vols.), Tableau chronologique des représentations journalières, etc. (from 1671), Dictionnaire alphabétique des tragédies lyriques...non représentées à l’Académie, etc. (five vols.), and Dramaturgie lyrique étrangère (17 vols.).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire