Appendix: Willem Pijper and the Efflorescence of Dutch Music
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Appendix: Willem Pijper and the Efflorescence of Dutch Music In order to allow for a balanced assessment of Fokker as a music theorist and as a composer, and to provide insights and critical commentary to his views on com- posing and performing music based on the 31-tone system that he and the other composers who employed that system used in their compositions, it is essential to explore both the composing styles and compositions of other Dutch composers of the early twentieth century and to examine the contextual musical environment in which they worked. We offer, first, some information about the state of Dutch music at the end of the nineteenth century and even earlier – this as background to an examination of the characteristic styles and modes of musical expression exhibited by several of the most important Dutch composers of the nineteenth century.1 One of the most striking characteristics of the history of music in the Netherlands is its general lack of continuity. “In this characteristic, which is shared only by England, lies the main difference with the three major cultures of Germany, France and Italy. It is a well-known fact that many of the leading figures in the world of music in the 15th and 16th centuries were Dutch.”2 With the death of Jan Pieterzoon Sweelingk (1562–1621), composer and organist at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, historians of music speak of a “withering” of musical activity in the Netherlands. Sweelingk, one of the leading composers of the seventeenth century, has been called the “master of German organists” by virtue of the fact that during the 1 For short biographical sketches of composers who are considered to be Dutch citizens based on prolonged residency in the Netherlands or had a particular bond with the Netherlands: Jolande van der Klis (ed.), The Essential Guide to Dutch Music. 100 Composers and Their Work, Amsterdam, 2000. 2 Marius Flothuis, “An unharmonious Figure in an Unharmonious Age”, Key Notes. Musical Life in the Netherlands, 3 (1976) 27–33. Quote on 27. Marius Flothuis (b. 1914) is a composer, chiefly self-taught, who studied at Amsterdam University and became artistic director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. E. Hiebert, The Helmholtz Legacy in Physiological Acoustics, Archimedes 39, 261 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06602-8, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 262 Appendix: Willem Pijper and the Efflorescence of Dutch Music eighteenth century the success of his Dutch pupils was transmitted directly to the North German school of composers that included J. S. Bach, Friedrich Ha¨ndel, and Dietrich Buxtehude. However, for 250 years after Sweelinck’s death no figures of international importance emerged: there was no Dutch Bach, Mozart or Berlioz, nor even a Scarlatti, Michael Hayden or Mendelssohn. The reasons for this are difficult to determine. A satisfactory answer has yet to be given to the question why in a country where, judging from the painting, music was often played and where many music publishers of international repute were established, so little creative talent came to the fore.3 For the Netherlands the year 1914 was a turning point in regard to the musical future of the country. Squeezed as it was between France and Germany as fighting powers, the Dutch managed to stay neutral – a neutrality that provided the Dutch with an opportunity to come to terms with itself at the level of its own intellectual and artistic past. Alexander Ringer has captured the essence of Dutch sentiments during the first World War: Despite the official neutrality of the Netherlands, the great war made the individual Dutchman suddenly quite conscious of his cultural allegiances. Intellectuals, artists, and students violently chose sides....Most of the younger composers followed suit, stirred undoubtedly by political sympathies and feelings of human justice, but also instinctively turning to the culture that alone held promise of their musical salvation. During the four years that saw their respective countries bleed one another to death, the artists and new compositions form both France and the Central Powers peacefully measured their strength before the Dutch public. According to this interpretation it is unfair to infer that the Dutch abandoned their admiration of music for a stretch of two centuries after Sweelingk; rather it was not until the twentieth century, and more specifically not until after World War I (the motivating factor for the renewal of interest) that Dutch music flourished among Dutch composers and the Dutch people – this with an energetic enthusiasm that was coupled with decidedly nationalist sentiments and spearheaded by a group of young Dutch composers who were able to invent a characteristic mode of musical expressionthatelicitedbothDutchandforeign acclaim.4 Our discussion of the contributions of post World War I composers and their role in the rejuvenation of Dutch music begins with Willem Pijper (1894–1947), who generally has been regarded by historians of music as the most significant Dutch composer since Sweelingk. Inasmuch as he set the pace for the renewal of Dutch music in the years between the two world wars his life, views, writings, 3 Flothuis, “An Unharmonious Figure” (1976), 27. 4 Alexander L. Ringer, Willem Pijper and the “Netherlands School” of the 20th Century, The Musical Quarterly, 41 (1955) pp. 427–445. Quote on p. 432. Appendix: Willem Pijper and the Efflorescence of Dutch Music 263 and compositions necessarily take on major significance for what follows.5 Unlike Sweelingk, whose influence was directed primarily to North German organists rather than to his Dutch countrymen, Pijper’s influence was felt most directly by Dutch musicians and the Dutch musical public. “His creative achieve- ments were the vanguard of a Dutch musical efflorescence, and his acknowledged pedagogic skills stimulated a generation of Dutch taste and society.”6 During the early years of the first half of the twentieth century, Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) and the French – typically Claude Debussy (1862–1918) – were the two most influential poles toward which young musicians in the Netherlands would feel drawn. Both signified a radical break with the past and to a large extent were mirrored in Dutch music of the twentieth century. As Wouters states the two alternatives: “There is on the one hand the influence of German music – in the case of Diepenbrock particularly that of Gustav Mahler, for whose work so much propaganda was made in the Netherlands by Willem Mengelberg – and on the other the influence of French music, particularly that of Debussy.”7 5 Willem Pijper, composer, was born in the village of Zeist outside of Utrecht in a working-class and rigid Calvinist milieu. His father was a deacon in the Herformde Kerk. After early interests that were divided equally between biology and music, he studied music composition at the Utrecht conservatory under the direction of the Utrecht composer and cathedral organist Johan Wagenaar (1862–1914). In 1918 he began teaching harmony, composition, and instrumentation at the Amsterdam conservatory, and from 1930 until his death he was director of the Rotterdam conservatory. Pijper wrote three symphonies, four string quartets, piano music, and concertos for piano and for piano and cello. Apart from the papers by Marius Flothuis and Alexander Ringer, already mentioned, the most useful writings on Pijper and the composers of his time have been Karel Mengelberg, Willem Pijper – 1894–1947, Music Today, Journal of the International Society for Contemporary Music 1 (1949) 36042; Jos Wouters, Dutch Music in the 20th Century, The Musical Quarterly 51 (1965) 97–110; Frank W. Hoogerwerf, Willem Pijper as Dutch Nationalist, The Musical Quarterly 62 (1976) 358–373; Anton Haakman, Pijper on Pijper, Key Notes. Musical Life in the Netherlands 23 (1986) 36–40; Harrison Ryker, Mosaics of Tone: Willem Pijper and his Music, TLC. The Low Countries. Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands (2004) 136– 141; Ryker, Willem Pijper, NG 19 (2001) 740–43 and MGG Personenteil 13 (2005) col. 577–580. 6 Hoogerwerf, “Willem Pijper...” (1976), 358. “The most important source of information concerning Pijper’s views and attitudes are the more than six hundred articles and reviews Pijper wrote in his capacity as essayist and critic. Contributing regularly to the Utrechtsch Dagblad (1917–23), his own monthly journal De Muziek (1926–33), and the weekly Groene Amsterdammer (1934–46), and irregularly to a host of other literary journals, Pijper’s agile pen left a remarkable legacy of critical prose.” Ibid., 360. 7 Wouters,“Dutch Music” (1965), 98. The Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock (1862–1921) was the first Dutch composer whose works would be judged by international standards. Willem Mengelberg (1871–1951) was a Dutch composer who studied in Utrecht and Cologne. In 1895 he became the conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, which had been founded in 1888. He was noted as an outstanding interpreter of Mahler and Strauss as well as of the entire Romantic repertoire, but he exhibited a rather unsympathetic attitude to Dutch composers and especially shunned the compositions of Pijper. This became more and more apparent after 1920 – so that in 1927 while on tour in Germany and Switzerland with his orchestra, not a single Dutch work was programmed. After conducting in Germany during World War II he was banned for life from the Netherlands. 264 Appendix: Willem Pijper and the Efflorescence of Dutch Music One of Pijper’s students, Karel Mengelberg (1902–1984), a nephew of Willem Mengelberg, has remarked: “The performances of Mahler’s works by Willem Mengelberg made a deep impression on [the young] Pijper, and their influence may be traced in his compositions, especially in his First Symphony (1917).”8 Until the end of World War I most Dutch musicians still were under the influence of German music.