Already at a very young age showed an exceptional talent for music: he was barely 8 when he performed in public a piano concerto of Dussek, and quite successfully so to boot.
A Lauda Sion for choir and orchestra performed in Antwerp was followed in 1847 by Faust, a large symphonic poem.
One year later his opera Le Gondolier de Venise (3 acts) premiered in the royal theatre of Antwerp, to an enthusiastic public acclaim.
Pougin called him "un-artiste extrêmement distingué, aussi excellent professeur qu’habile exécutant".
He also developed a device for conveying more flexibility to the fingers: ‘le Clavier-déliateur’, a mute keyboard of 25 keys with variable resistance.