Albert, Karel

Preface

Albert, Karel – Het beestenspel for orchestra, including transcription for piano by the composer

(Antwerp, 16 April 1901 – Liederkerke, 23 May 1987)

Karel Albert studied at the Royal Flemish Conservatory in the town of his birth, and took private lessons with pianist and composer Marinus de Jong. After the First World War he emerged together with August L. Baeyens as a champion of the avant-garde, holding concerts, lectures and conferences and publishing articles in numerous journals. In the 1920s, he made a name for himself as a composer of stage music for productions put on by Het Vlaamse Volkstoneel (The Flemish People’s Theatre) and the Théâtre du Marais. Though his stage music leaned heavily towards expressionism, in the latter part of the 1920s his style evolved into what he referred to as ‘constructivism’: ‘This was music that strove to be music in its purest form, lines that represent nothing more or less than a plastic value.’
After spending some time teaching at the Stedelijke Normaalschool, a teacher training school in Antwerp, in 1933 he started working for the Belgian National Institute for Radio Broadcasting (NIR). Aside from a brief interlude during World War Two, Albert continued working for the NIR (which changed its name to Belgian Radio and Television or ‘BRT’ in 1960) until he retired in 1961. In this role he acted as a powerful advocate for Flemish music, for example by including Dutch translations of operettas in his programme. Prior to World War Two he wrote a number of plays for radio, starting with De mijnramp (‘The Mining Disaster’).

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