Just 750 metres from Bozar, you will find today’s Place de Dinant, a small park surrounded by a row of green trees. It was named after the town of Dinant following the atrocities of the First World War, but was previously known as Place de Bavière. The original square had been laid out by Maximilian of Bavaria, Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands. In 1715, the Spanish Netherlands became the Austrian Netherlands, and in 1741, Charles of Lorraine officially became Governor-General of the region. Today, Charles of Lorraine’s legacy is not so much visible on Place de Dinant, but all the more so at the top of the Mont des Arts, where his imposing palace from the 1750s now forms part of the Royal Library of Belgium.
Yet Charles was also a regular visitor to Place de Bavière, for it was there, in the former Petite Boucherie, that a unique organisation under his personal patronage was based from 1756 onwards: the Concert Bourgeois. This organisation had been founded by Brussels citizens two years earlier, following the example of Le Concert Spirituel in Paris. For musicians, who were becoming increasingly independent of positions in the service of the church or the court, these concerts offered a welcome opportunity. The Brussels public, meanwhile, was very enthusiastic about meeting one another and enjoying high-quality music performed to a high standard. Newspapers of the time frequently praised the exceptional talent of the performers.
The status of the Concert Bourgeois was, of course, closely linked to the political support it received from Charles’s court. In addition to its regular concerts, the association also provided the musical accompaniment for major events, such as military victories or the unveiling of his statue in the middle of Place Royale in 1775, although the statue was melted down by French revolutionaries as early as 1794.
The Concert Bourgeois flourished enormously until things became more difficult towards the end of the 1770s. Tensions within the organisation grew, and it faced increasing competition from the Concert Noble and other initiatives devoted to music and entertainment in the centre of Brussels. When Charles of Lorraine died in 1780, the association lost its most important political supporter. The political situation surrounding the French Revolution and the Brabant Revolution placed its activities under even greater pressure, and gradually the Concert Bourgeois disappeared altogether. The buildings would later serve as a theatre, a synagogue and Brussels’ first Maison du Peuple, before being demolished after the Second World War.
"Van Maldere brought his international experience and network to Brussels, shaping programmes featuring music by the leading composers of his time, such as Joseph Haydn and Johann Stamitz."
What music could be heard on this remarkable stage in the heart of Brussels? Artistic direction was initially in the hands of Pieter Van Maldere, born and raised in Brussels, but above all an internationally renowned musician who was well acquainted with Parisian concert life and had himself performed at Le Concert Spirituel. He brought his international experience and network to Brussels, shaping programmes featuring music by the leading composers of his time, such as Joseph Haydn and Johann Stamitz. It was precisely here that the innovative trends emerging from Vienna and Mannheim found their way to the Southern Netherlands.
The Concert Bourgeois was not only a window on the world, but also a platform for local composers such as the slightly older Henri-Jacques De Croes, who in his younger years had served Prince Anselm Franz von Thurn und Taxis and later became chapel master to Charles of Lorraine. De Croes still had one foot firmly in the late Baroque and is sometimes referred to as the Flemish Vivaldi, but he was certainly not insensitive to recent developments in music. Pieter Van Maldere was one of De Croes’s many pupils, so it is hardly surprising that he was keen to include his teacher’s music in his programmes.
Van Maldere was succeeded by Ignace Vitzthumb. He had arrived in Brussels at the age of ten and, just a few years later, had already secured a permanent position in the court orchestra. He rose to become orchestra master and later director of the Théâtre de la Monnaie, thus forming an important link between the two organisations. He wrote a great deal of occasional music and, both as a composer and an organiser, left his mark on the sound of the city in the second half of the eighteenth century.
The music of Van Maldere and Vitzthumb illustrates how firmly the international early Classical style had taken root in this region. Their clear structures and elegant melodies reveal a distinct affinity with the style of the Mannheim school, of which Johann Stamitz was the great pioneer. They wrote symphonies and operas, in French but also in Dutch. Today, their music allows us to hear once again just how international Brussels’ musical life sounded in the eighteenth century.
