1855–1932 · Netherlands
Julius Röntgen was born in Leipzig in 1855, lived in Amsterdam from the late eighteen-seventies and died in Utrecht in 1932. A composer, pianist, conductor and teacher, he was one of the founders of the Amsterdam Conservatory. The site offers his piano pieces, variations on a Swedish folk song and an arrangement of Bach.
Julius Engelbert Röntgen was born in Leipzig on 9 May 1855. His father Engelbert, a violinist of Dutch origin, worked in Germany all his life and played in the Gewandhaus orchestra. His mother, Pauline Klengel, was a pianist from the Klengel family of Leipzig musicians.
Julius did not go to school: his parents and grandparents taught him music, and private tutors taught him everything else. His piano teachers included Carl Reinecke and Louis Plaidy. He began composing at an early age, and a duet for violin and viola written by the fourteen-year-old was played in 1869 at the Lower Rhine Music Festival by his father and Joseph Joachim.
At the age of fourteen Julius travelled to Weimar to see Liszt and played the piano for him. Afterwards he was invited to an evening at Liszt's house.
He went on to study with professors of the Leipzig Conservatory, but took his lessons privately. He worked on the piano with Louis Plaidy and Carl Reinecke, and on composition and theory with E. F. E. Richter and Moritz Hauptmann. He also studied orchestration with Reinecke.
The Röntgens belonged to the musical circle of Heinrich von Herzogenberg, and it was in his house that Julius first met Brahms. Later he moved to Munich, where from 1871 to 1873 he studied with Franz Lachner.
Röntgen began giving concerts at the age of eighteen. On a tour through southern Germany he got to know the singer Julius Stockhausen, whom he accompanied, and at about the same time he met a Swedish music student, Amanda Maier. They married in 1880.
He gained fame as a piano accompanist: the singer Johannes Messchaert, the cellist Pablo Casals and, in 1903—1908, the violinist Carl Flesch were among his regular partners. As a soloist his programmes were varied; in Amsterdam in 1887 he played a whole concert of music by Alexander Borodin and César Cui.
Brahms played a special part in his life and had a considerable influence on him. He became friends with Edvard Grieg while still a student, and the friendship lasted until the death of the Norwegian composer. Afterwards Röntgen completed Grieg's unfinished string quartet, and in 1930 he published a biography of him.
In the late eighteen-seventies Röntgen settled in Amsterdam on invitation and at first taught piano at the music school. In letters to his parents he remarked that the city's musical life was not at a high level.
Together with the composers Frans Coenen and Daniël de Lange, he founded the Amsterdam Conservatory. He became a professor there and in 1912—1924 served as its director. His pupils included Coenraad Bos, Bernhard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer and Hugo van Dalen.
Röntgen also took part in founding the Concertgebouw. When a conductor was being sought for the new orchestra, he applied, but the committee doubted his abilities as a conductor. The post eventually went to the violinist Willem Kes.
In 1886—1898 Röntgen also worked as a choral conductor and for a short time led one of the Amsterdam orchestras. At the invitation of Heinrich Schenker he edited editions of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the Vienna publisher Universal Edition.
Röntgen's first wife was the violinist and composer Amanda Maier; she died in 1894. In 1897 he married the pianist Abrahamine des Amorie van der Hoeven. Of the six sons from the two marriages, five became musicians, and the eldest, Julius Jr, was a violinist.
For some years Röntgen played in a piano trio with his sons Engelbert, a cellist, and Julius Jr. In summer the family often travelled to Denmark, where he became friends with Bodil de Neergaard. Until his death he spent his summers at her manor of Fuglsang on the island of Lolland and played a concert there every evening. Röntgen's children spoke Danish fluently.
Röntgen obtained Dutch citizenship in 1919, as the First World War was ending. By then one of his sons had been captured by the Germans and another had moved to the United States and joined its army, so for many years Röntgen could not travel to Germany, where he was born.
In 1924 he withdrew from public life and settled in Bilthoven near Utrecht, in the house Gaudeamus designed by his son Frants. Its round music hall is unusual: the floor was built clear of the ground and seems to float. Pablo Casals and Percy Grainger visited Röntgen there. In these years he was occupied with musical analysis and was curious about Hindemith, Stravinsky and Willem Pijper.
In the last eight years of his life he wrote about a hundred works, mostly chamber music and songs. He also experimented with atonal music, and in 1930 he wrote a bitonal symphony. In the same year the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary doctorate. His friend Donald Tovey worked in Edinburgh: he performed a new Röntgen symphony, and the composer himself was the soloist in his two most recent piano concertos in the same programme.
Röntgen died in Utrecht in September 1932. His final work was a quintet in G major for piano and strings; its subtitle, Sentendo nuova forza, means "feeling new strength". His honours include the Order of Orange-Nassau, the Order of St Olav and the Order of the Crown of Romania. The Gaudeamus house later accommodated the Gaudeamus foundation, which supports contemporary Dutch music.
He left more than twenty symphonies, many concertos for piano, violin and cello, operas, and chamber, vocal and piano music. After his death his music was forgotten, but in the 21st century interest in it is growing strongly. He also edited editions of Bach for a publisher.
Echoes of other composers can be heard in his music: the sources name Brahms, Grieg, César Franck and Max Reger. Like Grieg, Röntgen loved old folk tunes. He arranged old Dutch dances and songs, and his Oud-Nederlandsche dansen, written in 1902 from dances in the collection of Tielman Susato, were for many years his most frequently played work. He kept returning to folk material later, in his symphonies. He also arranged Dutch songs and hymns for church collections.
In his last years Röntgen wrote very quickly: most of his symphonies appeared in 1930—1932. The sixth symphony, of 1928, bears the title Rijck God, wie sal ic claghen, and the thirteenth, composed two years later, was nicknamed Alle eendjes zwemmen in het water. In the last decade he also wrote three piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, seven cello sonatas and seven string quartets. Donald Tovey compared him with Bach, both as the head of a large musical family and as a master of many forms and genres.
The site has several editions. Among the piano pieces are the Five Piano Pieces 'Dolce far Niente', Op. 60, and the Piano Pieces 'Uit Neerlands Volksleben', Book I, Op. 81, whose title points to Dutch folk life. There are also Variations on a Swedish Folksong 'Neckens Polka', Op. 11, and Julklapp (Jule Present), Op. 12. His work on other composers' music is represented by the Op. 37 cadenza to the first movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and the piano arrangement of Bach's Organ Toccata in F major, BWV 540. All editions on the site are marked at the Intermediate+ level.