Nuten, Piet

Annelies Focquaert (translation: Joris Duytschaever)

Piet Nuten was born in Temse on 27 April 1913. The Royal Flemish Conservatory of Antwerp and the University of Ghent were the institutions where Nuten spent formative years with teachers such as Lodewijk Mortelmans, Marinus De Jong (harmony, counterpoint and fugue), Floris Van der Mueren (musicology) and Edgar de Bruyne (aesthetics). In 1944 he graduated in art history.

He taught music at the Royal Atheneum in Ghent and music history at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent. In 1948 he was appointed librarian of the Antwerp Conservatory, reorganizing everything thoroughly, building up this library's reputation as one of the largest and most frequently consulted music libraries in the country. During his tenure of 22 years the number of volumes grew from about 20.000 to more than 200.000. In 1948 he was also appointed secretary of the Dutch language section of SABAM. In 1957 he earned his doctorate in art history with the monumental dissertation The Madrigali Spirituali of Filip De Monte, awarded a prize by the Royal Flemish Academy and published by it.

Besides he became professor of musicology at the University of Ghent from 1961 on. In addition to his wide-ranging activities as a musicologist and an art historian, resulting in his active membership of practically all Belgian and Flemish music societies and periodicals and several of their international counterparts, as well as being the author of uncountable articles and some books, he also composed an oeuvre of more than 200 titles. However, he was reticent about this production and published only a dozen or so. Among his works we find songs, choral works, cantatas and orchestral works, chamber music and an opera. He died on 11 September 1970.