Classical Music
During the centuries Belgium produced several notable names in the field of classical music. In the 15th and 16th century composers like Guillaume Dufay, Orlando di Lasso, Josquin des Prez reached European acclaim. André Ernest Modeste Grétry was the most famous composer- born in what is now called Belgium- of the 18th century. The 19th century supplied composers like Henri Vieuxtemps, César Franck, Guillaume Lekeu and Eugène Ysaÿe. At the end of the 20th century the most notable Belgian composers were Piet Swerts and Wim Mertens.
In the field of opera, baritones Jules Bastin and José van Dam have become the most famous and internationally successful Belgian opera singers. In the lighter classical genre, Flemish singer Helmut Lotti reached huge international success with his interpretations of popular opera songs for large audiences.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Belgium
Famous quotes related to classical music:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. ‘Material Differences,’ Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)