August de Boeck

August de Boeck was a Belgian organist, educator, and composer of operas, ballets, and hundreds of instrumental and vocal works. He was influenced by Debussy and the Russian Five, and he was one of the first composers in Belgium to embrace impressionism. De Boeck was born in 1865 in Merchtem, Belgium, where his father worked as a church organist. He attended the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, and he studied organ with Alphonse Mailly. After de Boeck earned his diploma in 1881, he became Mailly's assistant. He was also active in L'Essor, the Belgian arts circle where he met Paul Gilson in 1889, who would become both a good friend and an important musical mentor. From 1892 to 1894, de Boeck took over his father's organist position in Merchtem, and then was appointed organist at the church of St. Boniface in Elsene. Beginning in 1900, he concurrently held a second organist appointment at the Church of the Discalced Carmelites in Brussels. He also began an influential career as an educator and taught harmony and organ at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp and the Brussels Conservatory, and he served as the director of the Mechelen Conservatory from 1921 until his retirement in 1930. De Boeck's compositional style is often described as being spontaneous, lyrical, and ironic. One of his more fascinating commissioned works was his Concerto for Hans-Piano, which was a grand piano with two keyboards designed by Pierre Hans. However, critics have argued that de Boeck's Violin Concerto from 1934 was his most beautifully orchestrated work. He composed until his death in 1937 and spent his final years in Merchtem, where he tended his gardens and enjoyed nature.
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