Adolphe Samuel

Who was Adolphe Samuel?

Adolphe-Abraham Samuel was a Belgian music critic, conductor and composer.

Samuel was born in Liège. He was Jewish, and late in life converted to Christianity. He spent much time in Brussels where he was a pupil of François-Joseph Fétis, and where he was a friend of Hector Berlioz. He also studied with Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul at the Royal Conservatory of Liège.

Samuel, who won the Belgian Prix de Rome in 1845, composed seven symphonies, five operas and a cantata for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the coronation of Belgium's first king, Leopold I.

In 1871, after conducting an orchestra for some years and directing a series of Popular Concerts in which works by Peter Leonard Leopold Benoit and Anton Rubinstein among others were featured, Samuel resigned and became director of the Ghent Conservatory. He died in Ghent.