Liège

(Flem. Luik).

City in Belgium. An independent episcopal principality within the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire, it was annexed to France in 1795 and in 1815 to the Netherlands before becoming part of Belgium (1830). It was the centre of a vast diocese and of a principality that included the towns of Huy, Tongres, Leuven and Maastricht, and in the 19th century it became an industrial and commercial centre.

The offices instituted under Bishop Etienne (c850–920) included music, notably the antiphon Magna vox, from very early on considered the principality's hymn. Notger (bishop, 972–1008) encouraged music in the school of St Lambert's Cathedral and also in collegiate churches, convents and abbeys. The first choir schools were founded towards the end of the 13th century. At that of St Lambert, the model for the principality, from 1291, 12 duodeni (poor children) were instructed to read and sing the offices by day and night under the cantor, with a phonascus or succentor. 12 further singers, often clerics, were soon added so that polyphonic works could be sung. The average choir included six to eight choirmen, six children and a few instrumentalists, or a choirmaster, an organist, four choirmen and four children. Bursaries were set up in the 17th century to enable the most gifted duodeni to study abroad, mainly in Rome. The organ was introduced in 1212 and full-time instrumentalists as early as the 16th century; by the 18th the cathedral group comprised four violins, a cello and a double bass. The choir schools continued until 1797, when the French republican government closed down the churches.

The instrument makers Jan Verrijt and Daniel van der Diestelen were active in the 16th century. In the early 17th century and the 18th, André Séverin, Guillaume Robustelly and the Le Picard family built organs and Georges Palate and Jean-Joseph de Lannoy string instruments.

The tradition of theoretical writing and the system of choir schools, while guaranteeing continuous musical activity, tended to rigidify both discourse and musical practice, as can be seen in Jacques de Liège's Speculum musicae (beginning of 14th century) and in the repertory played. The Turin manuscript, for example (Biblioteca Reale, Vari 42), compiled in the abbey of St Jacques about 1320–40, contains only works of the Ars Antiqua. In the late 14th century and the early 15th, the reputation of musicians from Liège led to greater mobility on the part of singers and composers and an opening out to different repertories; the most gifted young musicians left Liège for Italy (among them Johannes Ciconia, Arnold and Hugo de Lantins, Johannes Lymburgia, Johannes de Sarto and Johannes Brassart) or the Holy Roman Empire.

With the destruction of the city by Charles the Bold in 1468 almost all musical and documentary records were lost, and at first musicians continued to emigrate. The bishoprics of Erard de la Marck (1505–38) and Georges d'Autriche (1544–57) brought stability, and Jean Guyot and Petit Jean de Latre breathed new life into their contemporaries and pupils: Gérard de Villers, Johannes Mangon, Johannes Claux, Pierre de Rocourt, Pierre de Xhénemont, Lambertus de Monte, Adamus de Ponta and Ludovicus Episcopius. Little secular music survives, but sacred music is preserved in numerous printed or manuscript anthologies (D-AAm, Chb I-III). This rebirth of musical activity sparked off new waves of emigration, mainly to the Holy Roman Empire (Antoine Goswin and Johannes de Fossa to Munich; Jean Guyot and Gérard Hayne to Vienna, Petit Jean de Latre to Utrecht; others to Spain to join the Capella Flamenca; fewer went to Italy, although there were still bursaries to finance advanced courses in Rome). Spa and Chaudfontaine, two popular watering-places, afforded musicians a supplement to their income.

The Counter-Reformation found fertile ground in the principality since so many musicians were employed at the choir schools, churches or convents. An echo of the new principles promulgated by the Council of Trent is found in the Grand livre de choeur de la cathédrale Saint-Lambert, a Liège anthology from the turn of the century (including works by Hodemont, Hayne, Remouchamps, Raymundi and Coolen). Instrumental music was also present in this movement, as in the Liber fratrum cruciferorum leodiensium (B-Lu 153), probably compiled for the organist Gérard Scronx in 1617. Sacred music was still the main output of local composers in the 17th century, as with Hodemont, Hayne, Pietkin and Lamalle, or organ music in the case of Chaumont and Babou. Still, however, the most brilliant composers did not stay in Liège, Henri Dumont making his career in Paris, Daniel Danielis in the Holy Roman Empire and France – a tendency that continued in the 18th century with André-Modeste Grétry and Antoine-Frédéric Gresnick. The 18th century was marked by the Hamal dynasty; Jean-Noël and Henri Hamal, like Grétry, Gresnick and Delange, travelled to Italy thanks to bursaries from the Fondation Darchis.

Music publishing came to Liège about 1630, apparently through Léonard Street; the output of printed material increased in the 18th century with François-Joseph Desoer, Jean-Etienne Philippart, the Latours and Benoit Andrez. Publishers also produced music journals: Andrez the Echo ou Journal de musique françoise (1758), Philippart Le rossignol (1765) and Bertrand L'année musicale (1771). Désiré Duguet, Isidore Gout and the Muraille family were publishers active in the 19th century. Victor Jaendel and André Bernard made string instruments up to the middle of the 20th century; Toussaint-Joseph Dumoulin, Victor Chèvremont, Jean-Lambert Hoeberecht and the Renson family built pianos.

In the 17th century, theatrical performances with music were given in the private rooms of educational institutions, including the city's principal hall, in the care of the Jesuits. In the 1750s Jean-Noël Hamal's burlesque operas in Walloon dialect were staged in the Hôtel de Ville. At the same time a theatre, La Baraque (also known as the Théâtre de la Douane), was opened on the Marché de la Batte for opera buffa and opéra comique given by itinerant companies. La Redoute opened its doors in 1762 and was the main stage for productions until 1805. The Société d'Emulation, founded in 1779, organized concerts mainly devoted to the music of local composers. The Société Philharmonique also gave concerts.

Musical life in Liège languished under French rule: the choir schools closed down and the bishop-princes were driven away. The Théâtre de la Douane was destroyed by fire in 1805 and replaced temporarily by a hall at the abbey of St Jacques which was apparently very successful. Under the Dutch, a music school was founded in 1821; this became the Ecole Royale de Musique de Liège in 1826. Daussoigne-Méhul was appointed director (1827–62) and an orchestra was set up comprising both teachers and students. In 1820, the Théâtre Royal de Liège was inaugurated. The theatre and the school, which became the Conservatoire Royale de Musique in 1831, constituted from then on the two centres of musical activity in Liège. The town developed a reputation based largely on its virtuoso violinists, who constituted a veritable school, founded by Léonard-Joseph Gaillard. It produced a stream of young virtuosos including F.C.J. Dupont, Désiré Heynberg, Jacques Dupuis, Lambert Massart, Mathieu Crickboom, Léon Van Hout, Joseph Jacob and Eugène Ysaÿe. Auguste Rouma and the virtuoso and composer Henri Vieuxtemps were influential teachers. In 1839 the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire took over the running of the conservatoire orchestra, now the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège et de la Communauté Française. The conservatoire was endowed at its foundation with a library that included some private collections (Léonard Terry, Joseph Debroux etc.).

The influence of César Franck, who left Liège for Paris in 1835, dominated the work of Liège composers, including Guillaume Lekeu and later Joseph Jongen and Armand Marsick. Désiré Pâque, Victor Vreuls, Jean Rogister, Albert Dupuis, Maurice Dambois, Fernand Quinet and Albert Huybrechts seemed unaffected by modern developments; it was only in the post-war period that a new impulse was given to composition. Pierre Froidebise, who used serial techniques, and André Souris, together with the Association pour le Progrès Intellectuel et Artistique de la Wallonie, influenced Henri Pousseur and Philippe Boesmans. In 1970 the Centre de Recherches Musicales de Wallonie was formed on Pousseur’s initiative. Frederic Rzewski, professor of composition at the conservatoire, influenced a new generation of composers that included Claude Ledoux. The Ensemble Musique Nouvelle de Liège promotes new music. Modernity has also been fervently championed in jazz: Bobby Jaspar, Jacques Peltzer, Sadi and René Thomas achieved distinction in bebop, and Robert Jeanne, Félix Simatine, Steve Houben and Guy Cabay followed in their footsteps.

Since 1967 the Théâtre Royal de Liège has been the home of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. Concert venues include the conservatoire concert hall (built 1887), the Palais de Congrès, the Palais des Sports (where large-scale opera performances are given), the Société d'Emulation, the Maison de la Culture and the Chapelle de Vertbois. Festivals and concert series have proliferated since 1945: the Concerts de Midi, the Festival des Nuits de Septembre, the Festival de la Guitare and the Festival du Jazz de Comblain-au-Pont. Musicology in Liège, established by Antoine Auda, was developed by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (University of Liège) and José Quitin (who in 1972 refounded the Société Liégoise de Musicologie, originally of 1909) and, later, Maurice Barthélemy, Anne-Marie Mathy-Bragard, Philippe Vendrix and Pascal Decroupet.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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PHILIPPE VENDRIX