Frans C Lemaire Belgian musicologist Date of Birth: 21.01.1927 Country: Belgium

Biography of Frans Charles Lemmer

Frans Charles Lemmer was a Belgian musicologist and writer, known for his expertise in Russian and Soviet music. He was born in Belgium and received his education at the Universities of Leuven, Ghent, and Harvard. Lemmer specialized in chemical engineering and business management.

After completing his education, Lemmer worked at the Belgian chemical conglomerate UCB from 1949 to 1990. He rose through the ranks and eventually became the General Manager of the film sector, which was one of the company's main areas of focus. During his tenure, UCB developed and produced cellophane and polypropylene film.

In addition to his career in the chemical industry, Lemmer was also a prolific writer and music critic. He published articles and reviews on music, particularly focusing on new recordings of Russian and Soviet compositions. Some of his work was featured in programs and commentaries for concerts and records released by various studios, including Deutsche Grammophon.

Lemmer's notable publications include "Costs and Profitability in Computerization" (1972), which examined the economic aspects of using computers in scientific and production activities, and "Dictionary of the Environment" (1975), a collaborative work with Emmanuel Lemmer that featured 1200 environmental terms.

Lemmer's main passion, however, was music. He published numerous articles and reviews on music, with a particular focus on Russian and Soviet composers. His commentaries accompanied recordings of works by composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dmitri Shostakovich, Moisei Weinberg, Galina Ustvolskaya, Valentin Silvestrov, Faradj Karayev, Tigran Mansurian, and others.

In 1994, Lemmer published "Music of the 20th Century in Russia and the Former Soviet Republics," which was hailed as an excellent and well-informed panorama of contemporary Russian music. A significantly expanded and revised edition of this work, titled "Russian Fate and Music: A Century of Revolution to the Present," was released in 2005. In this version, Lemmer focused solely on the music of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, with additional material on prominent émigré composers. The central figures in the book were Shostakovich, Ustvolskaya, and Sofia Gubaidulina.

Between these two editions, Lemmer also published a comprehensive study titled "Jewish Fate and Music: 3000 Years of History" (2001, 2003). This work explored a wide range of topics, from the symbolism of the shofar and Kabbalistic interpretations of music to Jewish themes in the works of Handel and Shostakovich. The book also included brief biographies of 160 musicians of Jewish origin.

In 2011, Lemmer released another book titled "Passion in History and Music," which traced the history of the reflection of the Passion of Christ in music. The book explored early liturgical examples, classical Passions, and contemporary compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki and Tristan Murail, among others.

In addition to his musicological and music-critical works, Lemmer also wrote articles on literature. One of his early works, "The Quest for the Spiritual in the Works of Saint-Exupéry" (1948), was an attempt to justify the religious and "theocentric" nature of the writer's philosophy. Lemmer also published a separate booklet featuring a conversation with Russian sculptor Alexander Burganov.