Charles-Louis Hanssens

Charles-Louis-Joseph Hanssens, known as Hanssens the Elder (l'aîné), was born in Ghent on 4 May 1777 and died in Brussels on 6 May 1852. He trained as a violinist with Wauthier, leader of the Ghent theatre orchestra, and in composition with Verheym, maestro di cappella of the cathedral. After more than a year in Paris, where he studied harmony with Henri-Montan Berton, he completed his training in Ghent alongside his brother Joseph-Jean Hanssens and the violinist Ambroise Femy.

His career began in 1802, when he took charge of an amateur theatre in Ghent, and he soon directed a French company in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam. In 1804 he moved to Antwerp as theatre director, but he returned to Ghent, where he remained until 1825. That year he succeeded Charles Borremans at La Monnaie in Brussels. In 1827 King William of the Netherlands appointed him musical director and, shortly afterwards, inspector of the music school, the forerunner of the conservatoire. Following the Revolution of 1831 he was arrested on suspicion and lived in seclusion until 1835, when he resumed directing the La Monnaie orchestra. He was dismissed in 1838 and returned in 1840, the year in which he invested in the theatre; the venture failed, and his last years were spent in poverty.

He was above all a theatre and institutional musician rather than an author of a large repertoire. His opera Alcibiade, premiered at La Monnaie in 1829, is among his most ambitious works, alongside motets and masses.