Goovaerts, Alphonse (Jean Marie Andre)

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Goovaerts, Alphonse (Jean Marie Andre)

Goovaerts, Alphonse (Jean Marie Andre), Belgian musicologist; b. Antwerp, May 25, 1847; d. Brussels, Dec. 25, 1922. He was a member of a literary family, and as a youth he became greatly interested in Flemish literature and in church music. He arranged and publ. a collection of Flemish songs (1868-74); composed several pieces of church music, and performed them with a chorus he established in Antwerp; also made transcriptions for chorus of works by Palestrina and Flemish contrapuntists. He publ. several papers propounding a reform in church music, which aroused opposition from conservative circles (La Musicjue de I’eglise, 1876; in Flemish as De kerkmuziek). He also publ. a valuable book, Histoire et bibliographic de la typographic musicale dans le Pays-Bas (1880; awarded the gold medal of the Belgian Academy), a monograph on the Belgian music printer Pierre Phalese, and other studies relating to Flemish music.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire