Samuel, Adolphe

1824-1898

 

Belgian operatic composer and theorist; born at Liege. He was a pupil of Soubre at the Liege Conservatory and later studied at the Brussels Conservatory. At the latter institution he won the Grand Prize of Rome in 1845, and after his course of study with the Italian masters, spent some time in Leipsic as a pupil of Mendelssohn. In 1860 Samuel was appointed professor of harmony in the Ghent Conservatory and from 1871 was director there. In 1865 he founded the Brussels Popular concerts and four years later organized the first of the annual grand musical festivals there, with an orchestra, of 450 and a chorus of 1200. He wrote a number of theoretical works and composed considerable music, including five operas; music to Potvin's Les Gueux; choruses with orchestra to Racine's Esther; several cantatas; seven symphonies; a symphonic fragment; overtures; string quartets; piano-pieces and motets.   He made the report on the musical instruments at the Paris Exposition in 1878, and wrote several works on theory, besides contributing musical articles to newspapers and magazines. His Christus symphony was produced at Ghent in 1895, and his Patria Belgica, a work on Belgian music, appeared in a publication on national music.