Johan Wagenaar

Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar was a principal figure in Dutch post-romanticism and enjoyed a powerful influence as a teacher; he was also renowned as an organist and as longtime leader of the Tonkunstcoor of Utrecht, one of the Netherlands' leading choruses. Born into modest circumstances in Utrecht, while an aspiring lad at the Toonkunstmuziekschool he was taken on as a private composition student by Richard Hol after the latter discovered Wagenaar's gift. Earning his diploma at age 17, Wagenaar went straight into teaching and proved quite capable at it; In 1892, Wagenaar spent a year in Berlin where he was a student of Heinrich von Herzogenberg and by 1896, Wagenaar was named director of the Toonkunstmuziekschool. He held this position until 1919 when he accepted an invitation to head the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, a post he held until his retirement in 1937. These advances were particularly meaningful to him for he had been born the fifth illegitimate child of eight to a woman involved in a long-term affair with a wealthy and prominent politician; growing up, all Wagenaar had ever known was discrimination and poverty. In 1916, Wagenaar was awarded an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Utrecht. Although he composed a couple of operas and several humorous cantatas intended purely as popular entertainments, Wagenaar favored writing orchestral music above all other forms. He is post-romantic only insofar as the term applies to the time period in which he lived; otherwise, Wagenaar's music was uncompromisingly romantic until the very end, sounding largely like Richard Wagner but with a less dense scoring palette; in that respect his music is more like Brahms or Berlioz. Sometimes he is compared to Richard Strauss, but Wagenaar's music is stubbornly diatonic and he only seldom utilizes chromatic sequences or other envelope-pushing devices, even within acceptably romantic boundaries. Wagenaar never wrote a proper symphony, but he did compose a Sinfonietta (1917); otherwise, his favorite medium was that of the symphonic poem. Among such efforts, Summer of Life (1903) remains his best-known entry. Wagenaar also composed numerous overtures for orchestra, and of his cantatas De schipbreuk (The Shipwreck, 1889) remains well known in the Netherlands. For a composer of his generation, Wagenaar's music may have been conservative; however, it is of excellent quality and that serves to raise Wagenaar's profile in contrast to many of his contemporaries that were mere imitators of German composers such as Wagner and Brahms.