Guillaume Albert Teniers

Guillaume Albert Teniers was a Flemish violinist and composer born in Leuven, baptised on 20 April 1748, who died in Amsterdam in February 1820. He came from a family of artists and was the great-grandson of the painter David Teniers. Sources give his name as Willem, a variant that reflects the linguistic crossover between the Southern and Northern Netherlands of his time.

For many years he toured the Low Countries, England and France as a violinist in theatre orchestras. In 1775 and 1776 he held the post of leader of the violins at the Théâtre des Spectacles in Brussels, and in 1780 he occupied the same position at the opera in The Hague, where he also acted as maître des simphonies. From 1792 he was a member of the orchestra of the Théâtre de la Monnaie, also in Brussels. After failing to secure a post at court, he joined a travelling opera company. Around 1800 he appears in the orchestra of the Théâtre Français in Hamburg, and he eventually settled in Amsterdam as a music teacher and leader of the violins at the Théâtre Français.

His surviving output centres chiefly on the violin: three concertos, three sonatas for violin and viola, variations, and a version for violin and viola of an andante by Haydn. His legacy is modest, but it documents well the life of a theatre musician in late eighteenth-century Europe.