- He became Commander in the Order of Leopold in 1881.
- He composed a Flute Concerto (Symphonic Tale), Op. 43a, and a Piano Concerto (Symphonic Tale), Op. 43b.
- In 1867 he founded the Flemish School of Music in Antwerp (later the Royal Flemish Conservatory) which he directed until his death.
- He came under the influence of the novelist Hendrik Conscience, becoming an ardent proponent of a Flemish national movement in music.
- In Harelbeke a museum remembers of his life and work, called the Stedelijk Museum "Peter Benoît".
- Benoît published numerous articles and pamphlets promoting Flemish music.
- In 1861 he visited Paris for the production of his opera Le Roi des Aulnes ("The Erl King"), which, though accepted by the Théâtre Lyrique, was never performed. (He also composed a work for piano and orchestra called Le Roi des Aulnes.). While there he conducted at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens.
- Most of his compositions were choral, many intended to be sung by the common people.
- In 1851 Benoît entered the Brussels Conservatoire, where he remained till 1855, studying primarily with FJ Fétis. During this period he composed music to many melodramas, and to the opera Le Village dans les montagnes for the Park Theatre, of which in 1856 he became the resident conductor.
- Benoît passionately pursued the founding of an entirely separate Flemish school, and to that purpose even changed his name from the French "Pierre" to the Dutch equivalent "Peter".
- He turned from his early innovative, harmonic style to one of simplicity.
- François-Joseph Fétis a Belgian musicologist, composer, teacher, and one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century praised his Messe solennelle, which Benoît composed in Brussels on his return from Germany.
- Through prodigious effort he succeeded in gathering a small group of enthusiasts who recognized with him the potential for a Flemish school that would differ completely from the French and German schools. However these intentions failed, as the school's faith was tied too closely to Benoît's music, which was hardly more Flemish than it was French or German.
- In 1882 he became member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.
- Benoît wrote a great number of essays on musical matters.
- In 1857 he won the Belgian Prix de Rome for his cantata Le Meurtre d'Abel. The accompanying money grant enabled him to travel through Germany. In the course of his journings he found time to write a considerable amount of music, as well as an essay called L'École de musique flamande et son avenir.
- His compositions include his "Rubens-cantata" (1877) which evoked historical events in Antwerp, the operas "Het dorp in 't gebergte" (The Mountain Village - 1857) and "Pompeja" (1895) and the oratorio "Lucifer" (1866) which is considered his masterpiece.
- He was a Flemish composer of Belgian nationality.
- Returning home from Paris after 1863, he astonished the musical community with the production in Antwerp of a sacred tetralogy, consisting of his Cantate de Noël, the above-mentioned Mass, a Te Deum and a Requiem, in which were embodied to a large extent his theories about Flemish music.
- He was taught music at an early age by his father and the village organist.
- Another important factor besides language were the folk songs. To him, they reflected the very nature of a given people, and so he considered them the "precursors of the national musical art.".
- Like many other composers, he tried (in vain) to produce an opera on a Paris stage. However, his piano cycle, Contes et Ballades (1861), was published and played in the French capital and was highly praised. After his scholarship ran out, he nevertheless stayed in Paris as a conductor for Jacques Offenbach's operette theatre, 'Les Bouffes Parisiens', and accompanied them in Vienna, Brussels and Amsterdam. Meanwhile, his religious cycle Quadrilogie religieuse proved very successful in Brussels.
- He discovered religious music as a member of the church choir in his home town.
- During his studies in Brussels he composed a symphony, religious music, romances and melodies but also Flemish lyrical dramas for Jakob Kats's 'Toneel der Volksbeschaving' (Theatre for Popular Culture).
- He was, without doubt, the most important Flemish composer of the nineteenth century.
- From 1847 to 1851, he studied with the pianist and organist Pieter Carlier in Desselgem.
- The life and work of Peter Benoît are encapsulated in his most famous song, Mijn moederspraak (My Mother Tongue) [1889].
- In addition to his activity as a composer, he proved himself to be a remarkable educator, conductor and music administrator.
- Benoît developed far-reaching plans for an integrated musical life with due consideration for his audience, amateur and professional musicians. Unable to fulfill all of his wishes, he nevertheless implemented ideas and structures which are still valid today with his 'Koninklijk Vlaams Conservatorium' (Royal Flemish Conservatory) and the 'Nederlands Lyrisch Toneel' (precursor of the 'Vlaamse Opera' (Flemish Opera).
- Upon his return from France to Belgium, he was considered one of the most promising composers. He did not let his admirers down and composed a piano (1864) and flute concerto (1865) as well as his Lucifer oratorio (1866). This work marks the beginning of a long collaboration with the poet Emanuel Hiel.
- In 1855, he was awarded an honourable mention at the Prix de Rome. Two years later he was a laureate of that same competition with his cantata Le meurtre d'Abel. He was bestowed a study grant that allowed him to visit the most important music centres in Germany before moving to Paris, between May 1859 and March 1863 (with several journeys to Brussels to defend his work).
- In his music school, he did not primarily wish to train virtuoso's but "thinking men and women" (Benoît introduced the concept of mixed classes) among the common people.
- In the 1870s, he composed a few very personal pieces, such as Liefdedrama aan zee (Love drama at sea) [1872] and De oorlog (The war) [1873]. However, in order to communicate his ideas to a broad audience as large as possible, he deliberately simplified the idiom and wrote almost exclusively cantatas based on historical nationalist themes, designed for open-air performances. This conscious choice also determined the work's structure which required numerous performers (which, again, served an educational purpose by involving many people in the production) with mainly homophonous choirs, a colourful orchestration, simple but attractive melodies and dramatic effects.
- Benoît was also well-connected in Antwerp where he was supported by the Teichmann family. In 1867, the city council appointed him principal of the city's music school. As such, he developed a "national study with and through the mother tongue" and later applied this theory in a general study programme.
- His work is an instance of 'community art', written for the sake of educating people culturally, and by that token clear and unequivocal. The Rubenscantate (1877) on a text by Julius De Geyter is a typical example of this.
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