De Stoop, Johan

Jan Dewilde (translation: Jo Sneppe)

The pianist, organist, music teacher and composer Johan De Stoop stems from a musical family. His father, Frans De Stoop, gave him his first music lessons. Subsequently he studied harmony with the Bruges composer Jules Busschop.

De Stoop held various functions in West-Flemish music life. In 1848 he became organist of the Bruges St-Giles church, where his father was singing master, and starting from the school year 1856-1857 until 1885 he was music teacher at the preparatory seminary in Roeselare. There he became "Gezelle's musical friend and animator", as Guido Gezelle's biographer Michel Van der Plas called him. Together with the poet, De Stoop wanted to found a Flemish-Christian artistic movement, and restore church singing and Gregorian chant. He also set several of Gezelle's texts to music, some of them even very shortly after their publication, such as 't Ruischen van het ranke riet (The Rustling of the Rangy Reed). In the issue of Reinaart de Vos dated 29 July 1860 a satirical song appeared, titled Ic was so langhe Slikman (I've Been Putting up with it so Long) and signed "G. and J. Spoker", alias Guido Gezelle and Johan De Stoop.

In 1862 De Stoop became conductor of the 'Société de Sainte-Cécile', a flexible ensemble that in the seminary could perform either as a symphonic orchestra or as a wind and percussion or brass band. For this orchestra he composed quite a lot of occasional works, such as the cantata Le concile (1871). In 1875, under the influence of Albrecht Rodenbach's Groote Stooringe (Great Disturbance) he composed nationalistic works including Het lied der Vlaamsche zonen (The Song of the Flemish Sons), Ei, ei, ei in vriendenkryngen (Oh, oh, oh in Circles of Friends) and Klokke Roeland (Roland Bell).

Later he paid rather more attention to liturgical music. Already in 1859 he had published Liber Canticorum, in which he advocated music that was genuinely sacred. In 1871 this was followed by his Traité de chant liturgique. Three years later he published Treurzangen of lamentatiën van Jeremias (Jeremiah's Elegies or Laments).

With his Recueil de chants, like so many of his colleagues from the 19th century, De Stoop worked hard for the kind of music education that devoted itself to singing and only in the second place to teaching musical theory. In his opinion the song was an important instrument in the battle for Flemish emancipation.