Edgar Tinel

Edgar Pierre Joseph Tinel was a Belgian composer and pianist.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Edgar Tinel.

From the period sources

Edgar Tinel, born in Sinay, Belgium, in 1854, began his musical education at home, taught by his father, a schoolteacher and organist. He entered the Brussels Conservatoire in 1863, where he studied under notable figures such as Brassin, Dupont, Gevaert, Kufferath, and Mailly, winning the first prize for piano-playing in 1873 (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900). Tinel further distinguished himself in 1877 by winning the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata Klokke Roeland (op. 17), a prize awarded by the Brussels Conservatoire for composition (Dictionary of Music, 1896; A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900).

His career saw him become Director of the Institute for Sacred Music at Malines in 1881, succeeding Lemmens, and later, in 1889, inspector of the State music-schools (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900). Tinel’s oratorio Franciscus (op. 36), brought out in 1888, “made him famous,” and was performed at the Cardiff Festival in 1895 (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900; Dictionary of Music, 1908). This work also received its first American performance in 1893 by the Cecilia Society of Boston, and in 1896 by the Cincinnati May Festival (Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians: American Supplement, 1920; Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1904). In 1896, he succeeded Kufferath as professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Brussels Conservatoire (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900; Dictionary of Music, 1896). Tinel was also a prominent figure in the “mouvement flamingant,” a group of musicians endeavoring to give Flemish art a national character, though Grove’s Dictionary (1908) notes that his songs were few and that his oratorio music, apart from the Flemish words, lacked a distinct racial mark. He published a theoretical work on Gregorian chant in 1895 (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900).