# Julius Röntgen



## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

JULIUS RÖNTGEN 
(1855 - 1932)

Julius Röntgen was born on 9 May 1855 in Leipzig and grew up in a musical household. His mother Pauline (1831-1888), a gifted pianist, was a descendant of the famous Klengel musical dynasty in Leipzig, while his father, the violinist Engelbert Röntgen (1829-1897) who was born in the Dutch city of Deventer, was leader of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Julius, who never went to school, received a thorough education from private tutors and began to learn the piano at the age of four. Following musical tuition from his mother and his grandfather Moritz Klengel, Julius had violin lessons from his father and Ferdinand David (1810-1873). Among his theory and composition teachers were Moritz Hauptmann, cantor of the Thomanerchor in Leipzig, Carl Reinecke and later Franz Lachner in Munich. Julius wrote his first composition, a violin duo, in 1864 at the age of eight. A meeting with Brahms in the spring of 1874 had a decisive influence on his compositional style, but Röntgen's admiration for Brahms later brought with it accusations of second-rate imitation of the older composer's music, a stigma which stayed with him for a long time. In 1877 Julius Röntgen decided to take up the post of a piano teacher in Amsterdam. He remained in that city until his death and became one of the most important personalities in Dutch musical life, not only as a teacher, pianist and conductor, but as a co-founder of the Amsterdam Conservatory, whose director he was from 1913 to 1924, as the promoter of concert series and as a driving force behind the design and construction of the Concertgebouw building. After the early death of his first wife Amanda Maier (1854-1894), a Swedish violinist and composer, in 1897 Röntgen married his piano pupil Abrahamine van der Hoeven (1870-1940). Five of his sons became successful musicians with whom he made countless concert appearances. His fifth son, Frants, was to become an architect. Among Röntgen's friends were the composers Edvard Grieg, (after whose death he was not only the executor of Grieg's musical estate but the author of a biography of the composer), Johannes Brahms (who used the main theme of the first movement of Röntgen's Wind Serenade, Op. 14, in his Symphony No. 2), Carl Nielsen and Percy Grainger. Julius Röntgen was also a soloist and an in-demand piano accompanist of Carl Flesch, Bronisław Hubermann, Joseph Joachim and Pablo Casals. A few months before the composer's death, on 13 September 1932, Casals paid his longtime friend a final visit and Röntgen dedicated one of his last works to him.

Julius Röntgen's musical output comprises around 650 works, written in almost every genre. At first his music was deeply rooted in the romanticism of the nineteenth century but in later years Röntgen developed his own individual style. Latterly he experimented with bitonality, was influenced by elements of Afro-American music and wrote incidental music for several folkloristic films by the Dutch director Dirk Jan van der Veen. It was not until a few years before his death that Julius Röntgen received the public recognition that was earlier denied him. The University of Edinburgh conferred an honorary doctorate on him in 1930 and shortly afterwards his native city of Amsterdam honoured him with a ceremonial gala concert in the Concertgebouw in which Röntgen was the soloist in performances of his last two piano concertos.


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Recommended listening:

View attachment 149297


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## Andante Largo (Apr 23, 2020)

I recommend his:

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (1888)
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E minor (1894)
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (1902)
Piano Concerto No. 4 in F major (1906)
Cello Concerto No. 2 in G minor (1909)
Cello Concerto No. 3 in F-sharp minor (1928)
Violin Concerto No. 3 in F-sharp minor (1931)


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Andante Largo said:


> I recommend his:
> 
> Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (1888)
> Cello Concerto No. 1 in E minor (1894)
> ...


I quite agree. All them CPO recordings are great and well worth investigating.


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## MrMeatScience (Feb 15, 2015)

I've performed the bassoon sonata, which is a really great piece. It was only published pretty recently (2006, if I remember correctly?) so it hasn't had much of a chance yet to establish itself in the repertoire, but I think it will in time. It's got more than a tinge of Brahms to it, which is never a bad thing in my book. I haven't heard much else of his though, so I'm going to check out these CPO recordings.


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## whispering (Oct 26, 2013)

Dear Mr Rontgen really had to dig to find you here. Love the piano concertos but you were so much more. Let’s try and spark some interest in other members of this forum. Your string trios are delightful. Oh I can hear some critics sharpening their pens. Not really mature works, lacking in emotional intensity,etc. You know mate the usual statements put out to sound important, but as useless as a broken record in actually saying anything of depth. Well IMHO they are great to unwind to after a stressful day. Yes we both agree you are no Mozart or Beethoven, but in your own time and musical world you were a gem. My go to relax pieces after a stressful day where I smiled when it would have been so much more fun to tell someone in the hierarchy of life where to put it. Please understand my old friend Beethoven, etc, are like dining out at a five star restaurant, but as well as that treat the human soul sometimes needs to dine at slightly more humble establishments. You run one of the best cafes in town and you can count on me dropping in fairly regularly in future. Let’s hope the record labels earn their crust and open up more of your menu to a wider public.


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