Abraham van den Kerckhoven

Abraham van den Kerckhoven (c. 1618 – c. 1701) was a Belgian organist and composer.

He was born approximately in 1618 in Mechelen into a family which included many artists, singers and organists. In 1633, Kerckhoven became organist of Saint Catherine Church (Sint-Katharinakerk) in Brussels, succeeding François Cornet, and occupied the post until his death. In 1648 he succeeded Johann Kaspar Kerll as chamber organist for Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, and was court organist by 1659, a position he held for at least 14 years. He died in 1701.

Most of his works were found in 1905 in a hand-written volume of organ pieces dated 1741 and compiled by J.I.J. Cocquiel, organist and priest of Sint-Vincentiuskerk in Soignies. This manuscript is sometimes referred to as the Cocquiel manuscript and is currently in possession of Bibliothèque Royale Albert I in Brussels, catalogue number Ms II 3326. Kerckhoven's works were published for the first time in 1933 by J. Watelet as the second volume of the Monumenta musicae Belgicae series; in 1982 a facsimile of the Cocquiel manuscript was published with an introduction by Godelieve Spiessens, and this edition is commonly used now.

Kerckhoven's surviving oeuvre consists mostly of organ pieces: fantasies, fugues, preludes, mass settings and other works. His music is influenced by Italian and French styles; fugues and fantasias are reminiscent of Johann Jakob Froberger and quite a few pieces contain typical French registration indications: pieces for plein-jeu, fantasies pour cornet, for cromorne or dessus de tierce. Sectional preludes with alternating free and imitative counterpoint, harmonically rich and expansive, are reminiscent of the northern German organ tradition.