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Joseph Ryelandt
Joseph Ryelandt (7 April 1870 – 29 June 1965) was a Belgian classical composer. He is known for sacred vocal music, including several oratorios and masses. His oeuvre catalog, which lists 133 opus numbers, includes symphonies, masses, an opera, numerous works for piano solo, chamber works and songs, and also five oratorios, which Ryelandt himself considered his most important works.
Joseph Victor Marie Ryelandt was born in Bruges, into a wealthy bourgeois family, for whom culture, tradition, and the Roman Catholic religion mattered. So did music, which, like many such families, the Ryelandts practiced a lot. From his childhood on he enjoyed private lessons in piano and violin. He studied assiduously, up to 2½ hours per day, but he gave up the violin after a mere two years.
Even as an adolescent he realized that his real destiny was music. But at the insistence of his mother, he first went to college, to study philosophy and later law—his father, who had died when Joseph was only seven, had been a lawyer. While at university, however, he continued his musical activities, including composition, although he had had only a few lessons in harmony. Eventually he persuaded his mother to let him show some of his compositions to Edgar Tinel, at the time one of Belgium's most esteemed musicians. Tinel had never taken on private students (nor would he ever again), "but," he wrote, "I let myself be conquered because this young man will one day be someone. He played me a sonata of his. I was stupefied. He already is someone, but he has never studied. This fellow has written sonatas, trios, variations, duos …" His mother relented, and from 1891 to 1895 Joseph studied with Tinel.
After his study with Tinel, he was able to devote himself exclusively to composing, being of independent financial means. The years between 1895 and 1924 were his most productive.
World War I and the subsequent inflation in the 1920s badly affected his financial situation. In addition, he had a family to take care of, for in 1899 he had married Marguerite Carton de Wiart (1872–1939), and the children had come thick and fast, eight in all. He felt compelled to find a position, and in 1924 he was appointed director of the Municipal Conservatory of Bruges, a function that came with a teaching load. He assumed it with some hesitation, but he discovered that he enjoyed teaching, even "regret[ting] that I didn't enter the teaching profession until I was 54." He kept on composing, albeit at a slower rate. Also, he ceased composing oratorios, which he considered his major works, but that was at least as much due to the death of Charles Martens (1866–1921), the librettist or co-librettist of three of his oratorios and a number of his cantatas, the tireless propagandist of his music, his literary, philosophical and theological interlocutor, and above all his friend, whose name he never mentioned without preceding it with "my good friend" or similar expression.
His life was busy: he took on a counterpoint course at the Ghent Conservatory, he organized a highly successful concert series in his own conservatory, he was often asked to sit on juries of music examinations and competitions, he was involved in the Queen Elisabeth Musical Foundation, which organized the Eugène Ysaÿe Competition, etc. Many honors came his way. He was asked to compose the Te Deum for the centenary of the independence of Belgium; he was made a member of the Belgian Academy in 1937 and a baron in 1938. But his private life was saddened by the slow decline in health of his wife, who died in 1939.
World War II and the miseries and worries it entailed caused his composition to slow down still further: he wrote nothing at all in 1940– 42, and only a few chamber music works between 1943 and 1948, when he ceased composing altogether.
In 1942 the Bruges City Council asked Ryelandt, who was well past retirement age, to continue as director of the Municipal Conservatory of Bruges. On August 31, 1943 the City Council finally parted with "this upstanding artist", granted him the title of "honorary director", and drafted Renaat Veremans as his successor. But as all these decisions were taken while Bruges, like all of Belgium, was occupied by Germany, the post-war City Council reversed them and re-instated Ryelandt on September 30, 1944. Ryelandt soon asked to be allowed to retire again, and his request was granted. Ryelandt definitively retired, in due form and again as "honorary director", on April 1, 1945.
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Joseph Ryelandt
Joseph Ryelandt (7 April 1870 – 29 June 1965) was a Belgian classical composer. He is known for sacred vocal music, including several oratorios and masses. His oeuvre catalog, which lists 133 opus numbers, includes symphonies, masses, an opera, numerous works for piano solo, chamber works and songs, and also five oratorios, which Ryelandt himself considered his most important works.
Joseph Victor Marie Ryelandt was born in Bruges, into a wealthy bourgeois family, for whom culture, tradition, and the Roman Catholic religion mattered. So did music, which, like many such families, the Ryelandts practiced a lot. From his childhood on he enjoyed private lessons in piano and violin. He studied assiduously, up to 2½ hours per day, but he gave up the violin after a mere two years.
Even as an adolescent he realized that his real destiny was music. But at the insistence of his mother, he first went to college, to study philosophy and later law—his father, who had died when Joseph was only seven, had been a lawyer. While at university, however, he continued his musical activities, including composition, although he had had only a few lessons in harmony. Eventually he persuaded his mother to let him show some of his compositions to Edgar Tinel, at the time one of Belgium's most esteemed musicians. Tinel had never taken on private students (nor would he ever again), "but," he wrote, "I let myself be conquered because this young man will one day be someone. He played me a sonata of his. I was stupefied. He already is someone, but he has never studied. This fellow has written sonatas, trios, variations, duos …" His mother relented, and from 1891 to 1895 Joseph studied with Tinel.
After his study with Tinel, he was able to devote himself exclusively to composing, being of independent financial means. The years between 1895 and 1924 were his most productive.
World War I and the subsequent inflation in the 1920s badly affected his financial situation. In addition, he had a family to take care of, for in 1899 he had married Marguerite Carton de Wiart (1872–1939), and the children had come thick and fast, eight in all. He felt compelled to find a position, and in 1924 he was appointed director of the Municipal Conservatory of Bruges, a function that came with a teaching load. He assumed it with some hesitation, but he discovered that he enjoyed teaching, even "regret[ting] that I didn't enter the teaching profession until I was 54." He kept on composing, albeit at a slower rate. Also, he ceased composing oratorios, which he considered his major works, but that was at least as much due to the death of Charles Martens (1866–1921), the librettist or co-librettist of three of his oratorios and a number of his cantatas, the tireless propagandist of his music, his literary, philosophical and theological interlocutor, and above all his friend, whose name he never mentioned without preceding it with "my good friend" or similar expression.
His life was busy: he took on a counterpoint course at the Ghent Conservatory, he organized a highly successful concert series in his own conservatory, he was often asked to sit on juries of music examinations and competitions, he was involved in the Queen Elisabeth Musical Foundation, which organized the Eugène Ysaÿe Competition, etc. Many honors came his way. He was asked to compose the Te Deum for the centenary of the independence of Belgium; he was made a member of the Belgian Academy in 1937 and a baron in 1938. But his private life was saddened by the slow decline in health of his wife, who died in 1939.
World War II and the miseries and worries it entailed caused his composition to slow down still further: he wrote nothing at all in 1940– 42, and only a few chamber music works between 1943 and 1948, when he ceased composing altogether.
In 1942 the Bruges City Council asked Ryelandt, who was well past retirement age, to continue as director of the Municipal Conservatory of Bruges. On August 31, 1943 the City Council finally parted with "this upstanding artist", granted him the title of "honorary director", and drafted Renaat Veremans as his successor. But as all these decisions were taken while Bruges, like all of Belgium, was occupied by Germany, the post-war City Council reversed them and re-instated Ryelandt on September 30, 1944. Ryelandt soon asked to be allowed to retire again, and his request was granted. Ryelandt definitively retired, in due form and again as "honorary director", on April 1, 1945.