Closson, Ernest

(b Brussels, 10 Dec 1870; d Brussels, 21 Dec 1950). Belgian musicologist. He was selfeducated in both music and musicology, and worked at the Museum of Musical
Instruments at the Brussels Conservatory, first as assistant curator (18961924) and
then in succession to Victor-Charles Mahillon, the museums founder, as chief curator
(192435). Concurrently he was professor of music history at the conservatories of
Brussels (191235) and Mons (191735), and a regular music critic for Indpendence
belge (192040).
Clossons enormous output of books and articles reflects an open, independent and
receptive mind, yet without any touch of naivety; his boundless enthusiasm was
tempered by a proper appreciation of the importance of supporting speculation by fact.
This is evident, for instance, in the exhaustive documentation of his study of Beethovens
Flemish inheritance (1928). A preoccupation with Flemish or Belgian music informs many
of his other writings (e.g. his monographs on Csar Franck, Lassus, Grtry and Gevaert),
his anthology of popular Belgian songs (1905), and his monograph Les nol wallons
(1909). Closson also wrote authoritatively on the basse danse; in his last years an
abiding interest in organology culminated in a history of the piano (1944). Besides being
an important popularizer of music in Belgium he was influential in securing the
recognition of musicology as a serious academic discipline in Belgian universities, and in
having it introduced as a degree course in 1931.
WRITINGS
Siegfried de Richard Wagner: tude esthtique et musicale (Brussels, 1891)
Edvard Grieg et la musique scandinave (Paris, 1892)
Les concerts populaires de Bruxelles (donns sous la direction de Joseph Dupont,
18731898) (Brussels, 1898)
Les origines lgendaires de Feuersnoth de R. Strauss (Brussels, 1902)
Linstrument de musique comme document ethnographique (Brussels, 1902) [orig.
pubd in Guide musical (26 Jan2 March 1902)]
Les chansons populaires des provinces belges: anthologie (Brussels, 1905, 3/1920)
with A. Doutrepont: Les nols wallons (Lige, 1909, 2/1938 also with M. Delbouille)
Notes sur lonomatope, BSIM, vii/7 (1911), 2635
Le manuscrit dit des basses danses de la bibliothque de Bourgogne (Brussels,
1912/R)
Notes sur la chanson populaire en Belgique (Brussels, 1913)
Roland de Lassus (Turnhout, 1919)Andr-Modeste Grtry (Turnhout, 1920)
Esthtique musicale: les matriaux de la musique: la cration et linterprtation
musicales (Brussels, 1921)
Nietzsche et Bizet, ReM, iii/68 (19212), 14754
Csar Franck (18221890) (Charleroi, 1923)
Llment flamand dans Beethoven (Brussels, 1928, enlarged 2/1946; Eng. trans.,
1936)
Gevaert (Brussels, 1929)
Une nouvelle srie de hautbois gyptiens antiques, Studien zur Musikgeschichte:
Festschrift fr Guido Adler (Vienna, 1930), 1725
La facture des instruments de musique en Belgique (Brussels, 1935)
Le lied nerlandais ancien dans ses accointances avec le lied populaire allemand
(Antwerp, 1939)
Histoire du piano (Brussels, 1944; Eng. trans., 1947, rev. 2/1974 by R. Golding)
Un facteur belge oubli, Nicolaus-Marcel Raingo de Mons, Hommage Charles
van den Borren, ed. S. Clercx and A. vander Linden (Antwerp, 1945), 14048
Llment celtique irlandais dans le chant liturgique, Miscellanea musicologica
Floris van der Mueren (Ghent, 1950), 635

ed., with C. van den Borren: La musique en Belgique du Moyen Age nos jours
(Brussels, 1950) [incl. Le dix-neuvime sicle et lpoque contemporaine, 23797;
Le folklore, 30314; La facture instrumentale, 45165]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mlanges Ernest Closson (Brussels, 1948) [incl. C. van den Borren: Ernest
Closson, lhomme, le savant, le professeur, 717; A.-M. Regnier and A. van der
Linden: Bibliographie des oeuvres dErnest Closson, 1829]
C. van den Borren: Ernest Closson in memoriam, RBM, v (1951), 68