V76: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

Charles Louis Hanssens was born into a family of Ghent musicians. His father was the director of the Ghent Opera and his uncle, a composer for many years. In 1828, Hanssens took an exam in composition, which was judged to Luigi Cherubini and Antonin Reicha. This led to his being appointed as a teacher of harmony and composition at the Brussels Royal School of Music. After the Belgian Revolution, Hanssens was suspected or "organgism" and left to work in Amsterdam and Paris. After the successful creation of the Requiem, he composed in 1837 to commemorate the victims of the Belgian Revolution, he was rehabilitated so that he was able to again settle in his native Ghent. Hanssens left an impressive body of work, including choral works, operas, cantatas, oratorios, masses, a Requiem, numerous works for chamber orchestra and much more.

The purpose of this CD, with it's wonderful historic recordings, is to keep alive the memory of the golden voice of Belgian contralto Ria Bollen (b. 1942). The CD gathers a large selection of live recordings, made both at home and abroad, that takes into account both the quality and diversity of her recorded performances.

Willem Gommaar Kennis, alreadya violinist with the St. Gummarus church orchestra at age eleven, was appointed chapel master in 1742. The preserved appointment deed stipulated that he was expected to teach the choir boys to read and write, to attend church services on a regular basis, to compose music and leave it for free on the singers tribune. There are only eight known vocal works, including a Magnificat, a Salve Regina and a Te Deum, which have now been recorded on an album for the first time. The works are kept in the archives of the Antwerp cathedral and come from the estate of Willem Jacobus Josephus Kennis, a son from Willem Gommaar's second marriage. Christoffel Drymans studied at Leuven University and was ordained as a priest. In 1763, he was appointed chapel master. During his tenure in Lier, the music academy flourished and the music library collection expanded considerably with new works by local and international composers. Of Drymans himself, only six compositions are still held in the church's archives, including Tria sunt, an anthem for the Office of the Dead, the motet Dixit Dominus and the extensive Opusculum musicum novem lamentationum, a collection of works to texts of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah for the Paschal Triduum.

V68: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V51: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V47: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V66: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V60: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V59: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V63: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V30: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V48: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V56: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS

V61: IN FLANDERS' FIELDS