Henri-Joseph de Croes (1758-1842)
- Sinfonia in Es-Dur (1782)
Performers: Terra Nova Ensemble; Vlad Weverbergh (conductor)
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Flemish composer. Son of Henri-Jacques de Croes (1705-1786),
kapellmeister and director of music at the Royal Court Orchestra in
Brussels, he received music lessons from his father. When he was
eighteen he joined the service of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis in
Regensburg in Bavaria, at first as a violinist (1776-1798) and from 1798
onward, as kapellmeister. Karl Anselm, the fourth prince of Thurn and
Taxis (from 1773 to 1797), encouraged court music in the summer
residence at Trugenhofen and at the main residence in Regensburg. He
continued to develop the ensemble, which had been founded for diplomatic
reasons by his father, Alexander Ferdinand, one of the Emperor’s
leading representatives. He engaged numerous virtuoso musicians,
including the French violinist Joseph Touchemoulin, the Bohemian
composer Franz Xaver Pokorný, the oboe player Giovanni Palestrini and
flautist Fiorante Augustinelli. Together with the famous Mannheim
orchestra and the Esterhazy family’s orchestra in Eisenstadt, the Thurn
and Taxis orchestra at Regensburg was among the best of its era. Henri
Joseph de Croes married the opera singer Maria Augusta Houdière
(?-1806). They had two children, both of whom died in their youth. As a
composer, he wrote an opera, seven partias for clarinets and strings,
several concertos, two symphonies, and chamber music.
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