Oeuvre catalogue
Foreword
In 2011 Walter Legley donated an extensive part of his archive to the library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel). This donation included a hundred manuscripts, numerous books, scores and concert programmes, all of which had once belonged to his father, Victor Legley (1915-1994).
This exceptional acquisition for the conservatory library was the impulse for a new catalogue of Legley's oeuvre, to which Koenraad Sterckx devoted himself in the years 2013-2021.
For the compilation of this catalogue, two older important catalogues were built on:
- Carine Tessely: Victor Legley (°1915) - Inleiding tot zijn oeuvre [Introduction to his oeuvre], a Master's thesis from 1977, and
- Ronald de Roeck: La producció de Victor Legley [The works of Victor Legley], a doctoral thesis from 2009.
New source research allowed to complete these catalogues and to gain a (hopefully) complete overview of Legley's oeuvre.
Victor Legley
For the composer's biography, we refer to the following websites:
- Matrix - Centre for New Music: Legley Victor (1915-1994)
- Musicians from Ostend: Legley Victor (1915-1994) (dutch)
- Muziekcentrum Vlaanderen: Victor Legley (dutch)
- Study Centre for Flemish Music: Legley, Vic (dutch)
- Wikipedia: Vic Legley
Notes on the catalogue
Some principles that apply to all pages describing Legley's compositions:
- when no explicit reference is made to a source, that source is the autograph (sometimes a photocopy of it);
- when Legley didn't specify the duration of a composition in his autograph, we take over the duration given by the former CeBeDeM, without explicitly referring to it; in a few cases other sources had to be consulted, these are explicitly referred to;
- when referring to Tessely, we adopt the pagination used by De Roeck when referring to Tessely;
- tempo indications are tacitly corrected: e.g. grazioso instead of Legley's usual incorrect gracioso.
Thanks
I would like to thank the following persons who helped me to realize this catalogue:
- first of all my colleagues in the library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, especially Joachim, Johan, Olivia and Richard for their assistance
- Emmanuel Sproelants and Pieterjan Hermans of the music library of the Flemish Radio Choir (Vlaams Radiokoor) and Brussels Philharmonic
- Hugo Sledsens of the VRT archives
- Ronald de Roeck
- Carine Tessely
Koenraad Sterckx, 2013-2021
