Van Rysselberghe, Jenny

Annelies Focquaert (translation: Jo Sneppe)

Most of her lifetime was spent in Ghent, where her father was a university professor. At age seven she started taking lessons at the Conservatory. There she consecutively earned first prizes for solfège (1896), practical harmony (1899) and chamber music (1901), second prizes for harmony (1900, Paul Lebrun) and fugue (1902, Emile Mathieu), followed by the first prize for figured bass and organ (1907) as well as the competence diploma for organ (1911) in the class of Léandre Vilain.

Already during her conservatory studies Van Rysselberghe was writing compositions, which were performed by herself and other students as part of the exams. In 1911, 1912 and 1913 she played organ concerts in the Ostend Kursaal, regularly standing in for her teacher Léandre Vilain. She sustained his tradition of playing arrangements of classical works in addition to the usual symphonic organ repertoire. Concurrently she performed a great amount of her own organ compositions, the majority of which presumably got lost: Allegro con brio, Au bord du minnewater, Ave Maria, Berceuse, Crépuscule, Elégie, Finale, Improvisation, Intermezzo, Méditation, Mélodies, Prélude, Réverie, Sonate and Suite en do.

At the World Exhibition in Ghent in 1913 she organised organ concerts thrice a week in the ‘Palais des Travaux féminins’, where she didn't only play organ music but also included harpsichord works in the repertoire. Furthermore she composed incidental music for the Ghent revue A travers l'Exposition (1914).

In 1912 she married the notary public and art lover Léon Cogen. The couple moved to Ninove in 1920, as Cogen had been appointed justice of the peace in that city. Together they organised several concerts, lectures and cultural events, such as commemorations of the composer Leo Moeremans. Until 1944, the year her husband died, she had composed at least 87 works: choral works like for instance Zonneschijn (Sunshine) - Hymne à la mémoire d' Emile Claus (1926), religious music (Stabat Mater, motets), symphonic poems, ballets and stage music, piano works, orchestral and children's songs, works for horn solo, violin and organ. Still in 1931 she composed Salomés dans (Salome's Dance) for piano or small orchestra, intended for performance during the passion play Het geding van Onze Heer (The Lawsuit of Our Lord) by the Ninove author Paul De Mont from 1926. Her Visions de Flandre for two-part female choir remained unfinished (1936). It is not clear whether she continued composing after her husband's date of death. In fact she undertook frequent travels to South America and passed away in 1966 in Chile, where she had a niece. She herself was the niece of the famous painter Theo Van Rysselberghe.