I'd like to create more interest in this remarkable Belgian composer:
Bio taken from cebedem.be:
Having completed a full score of musical studies at the Lemmens Institute of Mechelen under the initiation of Edgard Tinel, Arthur Meulemans was appointed teacher of harmony in 1906.
In 1914 he settled in Tongres as a secondary teacher of music. He founded and directed the Limburg school of organ and vocal music in Hasselt. In 1930 he left for Brussels to conduct and organize the radio orchestra. In 1942 he retired from his official function to devote himself exclusively to composition until his death.
Arthur Meulemans has known a long and prolific career and, undoubtedly belongs to the group of important composers of his generation in Belgium. During his lifetime he received numerous distinctions. He was a member and later president of the Royal Flemish Academy of Science, Literature and Fine Arts of Belgium.
As a composer, he brought Flanders the appropriate transition from the 19th to the 20th century. He was one of the first who fully appreciated Claude Debussy’s works. One could be tempted to qualify Meulemans’ work as being post-impressionistic. He was strongly attracted to purely symphonic works, although he did not neglect other forms.
His style is marked by an outspoken melody and strongly structured harmony. His orchestrations give preference to the precise refinement of well chosen timbres. His last works tend toward a certain restraint in orchestral colour.Meulemans was immensely prolific. He churned out no less than 15 symphonies, around 25 concertos, three operas, five string quartets, numerous cantatas and oratorios, and a host of other orchestral, band, vocal, chamber and instrumental works. It would be wrong to presume that quantity was more important than quality to Meulemans, because the few works that are available of his are very fine works indeed, displaying a creative imagination at work.
Meulemans' style, as mentioned in the article above, is post-impressionstic with added influences from late-romantic (in his early works) and neoclassical (in his later works) music. The majority of his works available on disc come from his early period. His early period (as exemplified in Symphonies 2 and 3 and the orchestral pieces
May Night and
Pliny’s Fountain Suite) is characterized by a relatively straightforward but not unimaginative blend of late-romanticism and impressionism. Points of comparison could be Debussy, Respighi and Joseph Marx. His middle period exploits an advancement of the impressionist idiom used in the early works. Works such as Symphony no. 7 (the best I’ve heard yet from Meulemans) show an increasing chromaticism, with a fondness for dark, almost crepuscular orchestral colors, creating an almost expressionistic mood. Rob Barnett gives an excellent description of this remarkable and individualistic work in this MusicWeb review:
The Meulemans’ wartime Symphony is the most 'advanced' work on the disc. It seems to speak of the fenland suggested by the title: bleak and romantic, dank and haunting (first and third movements), spidery, impressionistic (Ravel is surely his maitre in the second movement), sometimes raucous and ‘mécanique’, à la Markevich, in the second and final movements. The upstart finale rattles cages with a danse des guerriers that is part Ravel, part Antheil.I’d really like to hear more works from his middle period! His late period (as exemplified by his two Concertos for Orchestra) still retains some of the luminous impressionism of the earlier works, but with clearer-cut textures and a more streamlined, lucid sound, placing it in a similar category as, say, Martinu, Honegger, or Bloch’s neoclassical works.
I would dearly love to hear more of Meulemans’ music, but Belgium’s two main labels, Phaedra and Cypres (both very small, I might add), do not seem to have much interest in it. Perhaps CPO could take up his cause?
An extensive list of Meulmans’ compositions can be found here:
http://www.cebedem.be/en/composers/m/104-meulemans-arthurThere’s also an excellent MusicWeb article on Meulemans:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Oct02/Meulemans_Culot.htmThese are all the recordings available of Meulemans’ music, of which I particularly recommend the two Marco Polo ones:
That may seem like a lot or recordings, but remember that most of those CDs devote only a fraction of their playing time to Meulemans' music!
Anyone else familiar with Meulemans' music? If so, I'd be pleased to hear your thoughts on it! :)