Théodore Ymbert was the son of the dramatist Jean-Gilbert Ymbert, who also practised as a legal administrator.[2] Following in the family profession of law, he also studied composition under Auguste Barbereau.[3] His musical activity in Paris over the years 1858 – 69 consisted for the most part in settings for voice.[4] Two works were his most successful: the music for the one-act comic opera Les Deux Cadis (1861);[5] and his Sept Fables de la Fontaine, which was preferred to Jacques Offenbach’s settings of La Fontaine's Fables when it was first performed in 1862,[6] and which continues to be performed.[7]
Professionally Ymbert gained his doctorate in law and practised in the Court of Appeal of Paris.[8] As well as writing on both legal and musical subjects, he also collaborated in the revision of a number of administrative reference works. Among the latter was the Dictionnaire des formules ou mairie pratique contenant les modèles de tous les actes d'administration municipal (1880)[9] and the Dictionnaire général d'administration (1884),[10] for which he was qualified after serving as mayor of Bourbonne-les-Bains between 1873-8 and then as a deputy judicial officer.
