Willem Mengelberg

Willem Mengelberg (Dutch: Willem Mengelberg) was a Dutch conductor of German origin, born on 28 March 1871 in Utrecht and died on 22 March 1951 in Zuort, Switzerland. He became one of the most influential orchestral leaders of his era, associated above all with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, which he directed for half a century.

Mengelberg was the fourth of fifteen children in the family of the Dutch-German sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Mengelberg. He received his first musical training in Utrecht with the composer and conductor Richard Hol, the composer Anton Averkamp, and the violinist Henri Wilhelm Petri. After achieving a high level as a pianist and organist, he studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Isidor Seiss (piano) and Franz Wüllner (conducting), also taking organ, solo singing, and composition. He graduated in 1891 with first prizes in conducting, piano, and composition.

After completing his studies, he was appointed General Music Director in Lucerne, where he conducted an orchestra and choir, directed a music school, taught piano, and also composed. In 1895, on Wüllner’s recommendation, he became head of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. At the final concert of his predecessor Willem Kes, Mengelberg appeared as soloist in Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, and soon after took the podium himself, conducting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Leading the Concertgebouw Orchestra continuously for fifty years, Mengelberg shaped it into an ensemble of the highest class and among the world’s leading orchestras. With it he gave notable premieres, including Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem “Ein Heldenleben” (1898), dedicated to Mengelberg and the orchestra, as well as works by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály in 1939 (Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto with Zoltán Székely and Kodály’s “Variations on the Hungarian Folk Song ‘Peacock’”).

Mengelberg established a lasting tradition of performing Gustav Mahler’s music at the Concertgebouw after meeting and befriending Mahler in 1902. He invited Mahler to Amsterdam to conduct his Third Symphony, and in 1904 organized a concert cycle devoted to Mahler in which the Fourth Symphony was performed twice on the same program, once conducted by Mengelberg and once by the composer; Mahler described the idea as “genius” in a letter to his wife. In close collaboration with the orchestra, Mahler revised parts of his symphonies during rehearsals, adjusting their sound to the Concertgebouw hall’s acoustics. In 1920 Mengelberg presented a Mahler festival consisting of nine concerts performing all of Mahler’s works.

In 1899, on the eve of Palm Sunday, Mengelberg conducted Bach’s “St Matthew Passion,” an event that became a long-running annual tradition. Although he was acquainted with many contemporary composers and actively promoted their music in his programs, he was criticized for paying comparatively little attention to works by Dutch composers. Fred Goudbeck characterized him as an “ideal dictator/conductor, the Napoleon of the orchestra,” and in later years his behavior was described as increasingly extreme.

In 1922 Mengelberg became head of the New York Philharmonic. From 1926 he shared the chief conductorship with Arturo Toscanini, but creative disagreements led to his departure from the orchestra in 1928. He received an honorary degree from Columbia University in 1928, and in 1934 became a professor of music at Utrecht University.

The most controversial part of Mengelberg’s biography concerns his conduct during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In an interview for a Nazi newspaper he claimed that, on hearing of the Dutch surrender to Germany, he raised a glass of champagne. During the war he gave concerts in Germany and occupied countries and was photographed with Nazi figures such as Arthur Seyss-Inquart. In 1945 the Netherlands’ Honorary Music Council imposed a lifetime ban on his performing in the country; after an appeal in 1947 the ban was reduced to six years, and in the same year Queen Wilhelmina revoked his Honorary Gold Medal. In 1949 Amsterdam’s city council withdrew his pension for services to the orchestra. Mengelberg left for Switzerland, where he died two months before the ban was due to be lifted.

Among his numerous honors, Mengelberg was a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (1907) and held several ranks in the Order of Orange-Nassau (including Grand Officer in 1934). He also received decorations from Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the Vatican, reflecting his prominent international standing as a conductor.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the art history graph.