Radio Netherlands Music (original) (raw)

ZALTBOMMEL, 13 OCTOBER 1879 - THE HAGUE, 31 DECEMBER 1954

Peter van Anrooy was raised in Utrecht, where in 1890 he enrolled in the Toonkunst Music School. At the age of sixteen, he played 2nd violin in the City Concerts conducted by Richard Hol. One year later, while still at high school, Van Anrooy took his place with the 1st violins of the Utrecht Municipal Orchestra, which incidentally performed two works of his, among which his Andante for Winds. Not wanting his schoolmates to know he was the composer of these works, Van Anrooy told them that they were written by a cousin. During this period he studied the violin with Gerrit Veerman and composition and theory with Johan Wagenaar. For his farewell concert with the Utrecht Municipal Orchestra in 1898, Van Anrooy conducted Beethoven's Symphony no.5. He went to Moscow, via Dresden, where, around 1899, he studied composition for a year with Sergey Taneyev, a student of Tchaikovsky, and conducting with Willem Kes, who at the time was the director of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.

After having worked as an orchestral violinist in Zurich and Glasgow, he returned to the Netherlands in 1905. He earned his living for a short time as a private tutor in Amsterdam, but was soon appointed conductor of the Groningen Orchestral Society. From 1910 to 1917 he conducted the Arnhem Orchestral Society, subsequently succeeding Henri Viotta as conductor of the Residentie Orchestra. In 1914 Van Anrooy was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Groningen, with the historian Huizinga serving as his promoter.

Van Anrooy was a born orchestral rehearser; the successes of many a renowned conductor with the Residentie Orchestra during the hectic Scheveningen Summer Series resulted from Van Anrooy's preparation of the orchestra. However, he was not thoroughly appreciated in The Hague; owing to his reserved nature, he generally fared poorly in the inevitable comparisons made between him and the flamboyant Willem Mengelberg. He did, however, win national recognition through the youth concerts he initiated in 1924. The works performed in these concerts were introduced by him in preliminary program notes distributed among the schoolchildren of The Hague.

Although Van Anrooy had the reputation of not liking modern music, works of Mahler, Pijper, Hindemith and other composers of the day were regularly programmed in his concerts. Van Anrooy also showed great concern for the individual interests of the orchestra's musicians, for example with regard to pension issues.

Van Anrooy resigned his post with the Residentie Orchestra in 1935, one reason being discord over his choice of repertoire. In 1940, after resigning as conductor of the The Hague Toonkunst choir, the local chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Music, he was prompted by political motives to withdraw from public musical life altogether. Owing to his open criticism of the Nazi occupying forces, the performance of his music was banned during World War II. But he re-emerged into public life in 1947 with a biweekly radio program, 'Introduction to musical understanding', drawing a broad range of listeners.

Peter van Anrooy's orchestral work is couched in a neo-Romantic style. He is the composer of the popular Dutch orchestral piece the Piet Hein Rhapsodie (1901), the result of Johan Wagenaar's suggestion that he experiment with the song De Zilvervloot [The treasure fleet], by Johannes J. Viotta. The composition created such a stir at its premiere in Utrecht that it thoroughly overshadowed a performance that same evening of Johan Wagenaar's opera De Doge van Veneti� [The Doge of Venice]. The Utrecht Municipal Orchestra regularly programmed the work and in 1902 the music publishing house A.A. Noske released an edition of the orchestral score and a piano four-hand reduction, later followed by a version for a single pianist. Van Anrooy's treatment of the song bears witness to the breadth of his imagination, and the orchestration is impeccable. The climax of the work centres on the rather down-to-earth refrain of the song: after an introductory motif sounded first in the oboe's upper register and then presented again by a bassoon rumbling in the depths, the refrain is transformed into a galante minuet. The piece closes with a triumphant quotation from the Dutch song Wien Ne�rlandsch bloed [Those whose veins are filled with Dutch blood...]. It is not unthinkable that Jan van Gilse was inspired to compose his St. Nicolaas variations, also based on a Viotta song, by Van Anrooy's success with the Piet Hein Rhapsodie.

Van Anrooy's Piano Quintet (1898) is composed in a Brahmsian style, while the incidental music he wrote for the fairy tale Das kalte Herz is more reminiscent of the late nineteenth-century North German school of composition. The atmosphere of the prelude to the second act, for instance, is somewhat akin to Bruch or Humperdinck.

Even today, Van Anrooy's eighteen variations on Aan den oever van den snellen vliet [On the bank of a rapid rivulet] are performed. In these variations, Van Anrooy touches on the styles and musical approaches of such composers as Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Bizet and Lalo.

�- WILMA ROEST

COMPOSITIONS
Andante, wind ens (1895); Ballade, vl, orch; Piano Quintet (1898); Piet Hein Rhapsodie, orch (1901); Das kalte Herz, orch; Achttien variaties op het thema 'Aan den oever van den snellen vliet', pf

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. de Geus: 'Dr. Peter van Anrooy als leraar', Mens en Melodie, vol. 10, 1955, p. 2-3
W. Paap: 'Dr. Peter van Anrooy', Mens en Melodie, vol. 10, 1955, p. 1-2

DISCOGRAPHY
Quintet. M. Bon (pf), members of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra (BFO A-1)
Piet Hein Rhapsodie. Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. K. Bakels (NM Classics 92060)
Piet Hein Rhapsodie. Residentie Orchestra, cond. A. Dorati (Fontana 6530 044)