Jan Ingenhoven

Jan Ingenhoven was born into a family of gifted amateur musicians: his father (a baker) played oboe and violin and an uncle played the saxophone. He learned the clarinet at an early age, sang in a choir and was soon conducting local choirs in Breda and Dordrecht. From 1902 he studied harmony and composition with Ludwig Felix Brandts Buys (1847–1917). After his marriage to Johanna Hermine Frantzmann in 1905 he settled in Munich and continued his studies with the Austrian conductor Felix Mottl. Ingenhoven promoted Dutch music abroad, organizing a Dutch Music Festival in Munich in 1906 that included his own music and pieces by his contemporaries Alphons Diepenbrock, Johan Wagenaar and Carl Smulders (1863–1934). The following year he put on a similar festival in Berlin, introducing music by Anna Cramer, Kor Kuiler (1877–1951) and Cornélie van Oosterzee. Between 1906 and 1909 he conducted the Münchner Orchester Verein and the Dutch Philharmonic Orchestra. He also led the Münchner Madrigal Vereinigung choir (1909–12), with which he toured successfully across Europe. After 1915 he moved to Switzerland (Lake Thun) and also spent time in Paris. His wife died in 1929 and after that Ingenhoven composed very little. He donated his Swiss house to the Dutch Association for Contemporary Music in 1937, moving to Darmstadt for a short time before settling back in the Netherlands. He retired to the Veluwe district, where he died in 1951, aged 75. ==Music==

Ingenhoven composed orchestral music in a late Romantic style, comparable to Franz Schmidt, Richard Strauss and Alexander Zemlinsky. Typical are the three orchestral Symphonic Poems (Lyrical, Dramatic, Romantic) composed between 1905 and 1908: the second of these was performed three times by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in September 1915, conducted by Evert Cornelis. Other large scale orchestral pieces in much the same vein are the Symphonische Fantasie über Zarathustras (1906) and the Symphonische Fantasie Brabant and Holland (1910–11). The vocal quartet ‘Nous n’irons plus au bois’ (1909) from the 4 quatuors à voix mixtes, was claimed by Ingenhoven to be the first atonal vocal work by a Dutch composer. The choral settings put an emphasis on intricate polyphony, derived both from Renaissance music and his contemporary Max Reger. In particular, the later chamber works combine his interest in polyphony with a more homophonic approach, harmonically ambiguous with long melismatic melodies of little thematic function. but after his German period Ingenhoven himself did little to promote his compositions. ==Selected works==

• 4 quatuors à voix mixtes (1903–9) • Violin Sonata No. 1 (1919-20) • Violin Sonata No. 2 (1921) • Cello Sonata No. 2, Quasi una fantasia (1922) • Four pieces for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, timpani and strings (1924) • Three movements for three clarinets, three oboes and piano (1924-25) • The wild wind (words Guido Gezelle), for a capella male voices (1926) • What a silence, for a capella male voices ==References==