2024.01

— Author of L’orgue ancien et moderne [1887]
Vital Couwenbergh o. praem. (1854-1914), trained by Petrus Carolus van den Bogaert o. praem. (1829-1874) and by Joseph Callaerts (1830-1901), was from his entry into the Abbey of Averbode the talented organist of the great Hippolyte Loret organ. He published an important organological work in the French language: L’orgue ancien et moderne [1887] in which he described the whole 19th century development of organ-building in Belgium. Apart from Joseph Merklin (1819-1905) and Pierre Schyven (1827-1916) he focused especially on the extension-system developed by Léonard Drijvers (1827-1892), with whom he had a close relationship. The interesting vestiges of the organ in O.L.V in Aarschot are a testimony to this complex system. Notwithstanding well-justified criticism of the musical deficiencies of such instruments, it was nevertheless a technical prowess to be able to extend a single ground-stop over several manuals and pedal.
As chairman of the committee Couwenbergh played an important part in the reedition of the Graduale Praemonstratense (1910). In his quest for the ‘original’ Premonstratensian Gregorian tradition he was as a musicologist an intellectual paradigm, searching to apply traditional qualities to contemporary practice. He composed a number of respectable works for organ, harmonium and piano as well as choral and vocal music, without ever reaching the artistic quality of contemporaries such as Alphonse Mailly, Joseph Tilborghs and others. He was also an accomplished artist, although his works were never of the highest quality. In 1901 he became chaplain, first of the new Jesuit Sint-Michielscollege in Brussels, and then from 1911 till his death of the royal Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk in Schaarbeek.