Gregoir, Jacques Mathieu Joseph


Successful Belgian pianist and piano composer; brother of preceding; born at Antwerp. He appeared at the age of eight, playing a concerto by Dussek. Studied under Herz at the Paris Conservatory after the Revolution of 1830, and later went to Biberach with his brother, where both studied under Rummel. He returned to Antwerp in 1847, and succeeded both as pianist and composer, producing the same year a cantata, Faust, and a Lauda Sion for chorus and orchestra. The next year his opera, Le gondolier de Venise, was produced, and he went to Brussels, finally settling there as a teacher in 1850, after a year's work in an English school at Bruges. He traveled in concert at times in various European countries and died at Brussels. His works for piano are numerous, and largely of the parlor type, though they include a concerto and studies.