Research Guides: International Music Resources by Country: Netherlands

Map of the Netherlands

Citation (2)

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music-Netherlands

Netherlands
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Books

Composing Dissent by Robert Adlington The 1960s saw the emergence in the Netherlands of a generation of avant-garde musicians (including figures such as Louis Andriessen, Willem Breuker, Reinbert de Leeuw and Misha Mengelberg) who were to gain international standing and influence as composers, performers and teachers, and who had a defining impact upon Dutch musical life. Fundamental to their activities in the sixties was a pronounced commitment to social and political engagement. The lively culture of activism and dissent on the streets of Amsterdam prompted an array of vigorous responses from these musicians, including collaborations with countercultural and protest groups, campaigns and direct action against established musical institutions, new grassroots performing associations, political concerts, polemicising within musical works, and the advocacy of new, more 'democratic' relationships with both performers and audiences. These activities laid the basis for the unique new music scene that emerged in the Netherlands in the 1970s and which has been influential upon performers and composers worldwide. This book is the first sustained scholarly examination of this subject. It presents the Dutch experience as an exemplary case study in the complex and conflictual encounter of the musical avant-garde with the decade's currents of social change. The narrative is structured around a number of the decade's defining topoi: modernisation and 'the new'; anarchy; participation; politics; self-management; and popular music. Dutch avant-garde musicians engaged actively with each of these themes, but in so doing they found themselves faced with distinct and sometimes intractable challenges, caused by the chafing of their political and aesthetic commitments. In charting a broad chronological progress from the commencement of work on Peter Schat's Labyrint in 1961 to the premiere of Louis Andriessen's Volkslied in 1971, this book traces the successive attempts of Dutch avant-garde musicians to reconcile the era's evolving social agendas with their own adventurous musical practice.
Call Number: ML295.5 .A35 2013
Music of Louis Andriessen by Maja Trochimczyk (Editor) This book presents the musician in dialog with a Polish-Canadian musicologist and three of his Dutch friends and collaborators, Reinbert de Leeuw, Elmer Schönberger and Frits van der Waa. Topics include his artistic evolution, his relationship to minimalism, his prevalent interest in mysticism and meaning, the use of quotation and writing for the stage and an introduction to his musical language.
Call Number: ML410.A6326 A5 2002
The Music of Louis Andriessen by Yayoi Uno Everett For much of his career, the internationally known and still active Dutch composer Louis Andriessen has been understood as an iconoclast who challenged and resisted the musical establishment. This book explores his compositions as a case study for exploring the social and aesthetic implications of new music. Everett chronicles the evolution of Andriessen's music over the course of five decades: the formative years in which he experimented with serialism and collage techniques; his political activism in the late 1960s; 'concept' works from the 1970s that provide musical commentary on philosophical writings by Plato, St Augustine and others; theatrical and operatic collaborations with Robert Wilson and Peter Greenaway in the 1980s and 1990s; and recent works that explore contemplative themes on death and madness. Everett's analysis of Andriessen's music draws on theories of parody, narrativity, and intertextuality that have gained currency in musicological discourse in recent years.
Call Number: ML410.A6326 E83 2006
Sacred Song and the Pennsylvania Dutch by Daniel Jay Grimminger The Pennsylvania Dutch comprised the largest single ethnic group in the early American Republic of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet like other ethnic minorities in early America, they struggled to maintain their own distinct ethnic identity in everything that they did. Eventually their German Lutheran and Reformed customs and folkways gave way to Anglo-American pressure. The tune and chorale books printed for use in Pennsylvania Dutch churches document this gradual process of Americanization, including notable moments of resistance to change. Daniel Grimminger's Sacred Song and the Pennsylvania Dutch is the only in-depth study of the shifting identity of the Pennsylvania Dutch as manifested in their music. Through a closer examination of music sources, folk art, and historical contexts, this interdisciplinary study sheds light on the process of cultural change that occurred over the course of a century or more in the majority of Pennsylvania German communities and churches. Grimminger's book also provides a model with which to view all ethnic enclaves, in America and elsewhere, and the ways in which loyalties can shift as a group becomes part of a larger cultural fabric. Daniel Grimminger holds a doctorate in sacred music and choral conducting, as well as a PhD in musicology. He also holds a master of theological studies degree and is a clergyman in the North American Lutheran Church. Grimminger teaches at Kent State University and is the pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio.
Call Number: ML3555 .G75 2012

Listen to Dutch Music!

Flag of the Netherlands

Capital: Amsterdam

Official Language: Dutch

Population: 17,544,480

Area: 41,540

Climate: The climate is temperate: the average temperature in January is 3.3°C (38°F), while the average in July is 18.1°C (65°F).

Citation (3)

Opera in the Netherlands

Opera in the Netherlands

The present Kingdom of the Netherlands (familiarly but imprecisely called ‘Holland’) has existed as such since 1830; the region was formerly known as the United Provinces. For social and religious reasons, the country was slow to develop an operatic tradition, in spite of the fact that Amsterdam was an important commercial centre, with a strong music publishing industry which handled much Italian music. An active figure in the late 18th century was Bartholomeus Ruloffs, composer, translator and arranger of many operas, especially from the French opéra comique repertory.

While only sporadic attempts were made to establish Dutch opera in the early 19th century, one example being Johannes Bernardus van Bree’s Saffo (1834), there was keen interest in the latest German developments, and Tannhäuser was seen in Amsterdam before it reached Paris or London. The troupe at the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg under J. E. de Vries undertook tours throughout the country. After World War I the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam played a significant role in operatic life, especially in Wagner productions. The Zuid-Nederlandse Opera was active in the southern provinces until 1971. The company, of which Pierre Audi was appointed artistic director in 1988, is not only the focal point of the nation’s operatic life but also attracts considerable international attention for the quality of its productions.

Citation (4)

Composer Highlight: Willem Pijper

Willem Pijper

1894-1947

He was, with Vermeulen, the most important composer in the Netherlands in the first half of the 20th century; his teaching and writing also made a significant impact. He grew up in a working-class Calvinist milieu in a village outside Utrecht. Already studying the organ, he left school in 1911 to enroll in the Utrecht Toonkunst Muziekschool, where he studied composition with Johan Wagenaar and the piano with Helena van Lunteren-Hansen.

A radical new compositional style, confirmed in 1920 with Heer Halewijn and the Septet, made Pipjer leader of the Dutch musical avant garde. He represented the Netherlands at the founding of the ISCM in Salzburg, 1922; soon after, backed by Sem Dresden, he established the Dutch ISCM section. In 1923 he met the playwright Balthazar Verhagen, and new co-productions of Greek dramas resulted, beginning with De bacchanten. Following an earlier, unsuccessful attempt, Pipjer in 1930 became head of the Rotterdam Conservatory, a position he held until his death. Several of his former students joined the teaching staff, and together with the local conductor, Flipse, they made Rotterdam a centre for contemporary music. In 1932, supported by his wife, he moved to a luxurious house in Wassenaar, and two years later, following the triumphant Amsterdam première of the opera Halewijn, he was knighted.

Citation: Ryker, H. Pijper, Willem. Grove Music Online. Retrieved 16 Feb. 2022, from https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000021754.

International Music Resources by Country: Netherlands