Strauwen, Jean

Jean Strauwen – Fantaisie pour hautbois et piano

(Laeken, 22 March 1878 – Brussels, 4 January 1947)

(1914?)

Jean Strauwen came from a family of musicians in Laeken (near Brussels). Not only his grandfather and father were musicians, but also his three brothers were active as composers, instrumentalists or music teachers. Jean Strauwen studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where he took music theory courses with the composers Gustave Huberti and Edgar Tinel and earned a First Prize for cello with Eduard Jacobs. Like so many other Belgian composers, he later took private lessons with Paul Gilson. Later he would become a teacher of solfège himself at the Brussels Conservatory; he also published a method for solfège and harmony. Strauwen conducted several music ensembles in and around Brussels, such as fanfare bands, wind orchestras and the Cercle Instrumental, with which he won several music competitions.

Besides numerous compositions and arrangements for the bands and orchestras he conducted, he also wrote symphonic music, chamber music, songs and choir music.
Strauwen composed several pedagogical works, but thanks to his talent he managed to turn those works into interesting compositions.

He wrote the Fantaisie pour hautbois et piano as a compulsory work for the Prix Guillaume Guidé. This Guidé (1859-1917) was an oboe teacher at the Brussels Conservatory (until the end of 1910) and also solo oboist in the orchestras of La Monnaie and the Concerts Populaires, where he played under eminent conductors. Richard Strauss called him ‘l’excellent poète de l’hautbois’. Guidé was also a passionate concert organiser and from 1900 to 1914 he was co-director of La Monnaie.
Guidé had established this prize for oboe and English horn for alumni of the Brussels Conservatory who had won a First Prize in the previous three years. In 1914 two competitors competed for the prize, Wauty and De Brandt, and it was the latter who was unanimously awarded the prize.

Strauwen dedicated this virtuoso and rhapsodic Fantaisie to Fernand Piérard, since 31 December 1910 Guidé’s successor as an oboe teacher in Brussels.

Jan Dewilde
(translation: Jasmien Dewilde)

This edition is a facsimile of a score from the library of the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp (KVC 103154) and was published with the collaboration of the Study Centre for Flemish Music voor (www.svm.be).

Read full Flemish and German preface > HERE