Cuypers, Jozef

Annelies Focquaert (translation: Joris Duytschaever)

Already as a pupil at St Joseph’s College in Aarschot Jozef Cuypers was probably privately tutored in music by Herman Meulemans, the organist of Our Lady’s church.

On the outbreak of the war in 1914 Cuypers at 15 fled with his family to the Netherlands. He ended up in the Belgian seminary of Kaatsheuvel, established shortly before by Dominicans from Aarschot who had taken refuge there, studying music with father Simon Govaerts. After 1919 he returned to Aarschot with a view to taking classes of piano, organ, harmony and counterpoint with Herman Meulemans. Cuypers was also encouraged by Meulemans to pursue advanced music studies at the Lemmens Institute. Together with his classmates Flor Peeters and Staf Nees he was taught organ by Oscar Depuydt while concurrently studying counterpoint and composition. He graduated in 1922, leaving a year later for Ireland, where he was to spend the rest of his life.

In those days there was much need of competent music teachers in Ireland, the Lemmens Institute making itself useful as one of the most important providers. Among the expat pioneers before Cuypers, at least the following deserve to be mentioned: Bellens, De Meulemeester, van Dessel, Van de Velde and De Regge. Actually there were so many Belgian musicians around that some Irish newspapers dubbed Ireland in this context ‘the land of Belgian organists’. On 10 January 1923 Cuypers was appointed as choir master and music teacher at the Dominican convent college of Newbridge in County Kildare, at 40 kilometres from the capital Dublin. There he gave violin, piano and organ lessons, thus becoming the mentor of quite a few talented Irish musicians. In addition to his teaching duties he also served every day as organist and as conductor of the college church choir.

He became also fascinated by Irish folk music, and through the good offices of his friend MacNychol (MacNiocaill), chief inspector of music education, the government of De Valera commissioned him to edit three volumes of music with piano arrangements of Irish songs (1937-1939). The eminent Bartok specialist Denijs Dille, in a NIR broadcast, did not hesitate to appreciate these volumes as much as the folk music volumes of Bélà Bartok: “Here he deals with the piano in a totally different way. If his early work exuded a late romanticism, albeit sharper of sound than Chopin’s oeuvre, by contrast the beautiful Irish songs are enfolded in a sympathetic net of original Cuypers themes. No more romanticism here. It requires a lot of know-how to arrange the songs in the forms of rondo, Lied and minuet, resulting in a convincing whole to boot. Think of the mischievous ‘Father O’Flynn’, the lovely ‘A Clear Summer’s Morning’, and most of all the overwhelming ‘Return From Fingal’. These folk music arrangements by Cuypers are, together with those of Bélà Bartok, the very best I am aware of."

Also in his own compositions Cuypers often uses titles inspired by Ireland, e.g. in the piano volume Dublin Bay in Summerlight, dedicated to his teacher Herman Meulemans (1934), the Brian Boru March, and the Victory March, dedicated to Ernest De Regge. In addition to piano music Cuypers wrote a considerable number of Flemish songs on texts by Alice Nahon and Guido Gezelle, among others. Recordings of his works were often broadcast by the BBC, Radio Dublin, RTF Paris, Hilversum and BRT Brussels.

In 1970 he became an honorary citizen of Aarschot. The municipal museum of Aarschot gives pride of place to the composer in the room ‘Aarschot and the Arts’, preserving a copy of his Dublin Bay as well.