Johannes Joseph Hermann Verhulst (March 19, 1816 in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
– January 17, 1891 in
Bloemendaal
Bloemendaal () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Bloemendaal is, together with Wassenaar, the wealthiest place in the Netherlands.
In October 2015, after persistent problems with the local governa ...
) was a Dutch
composer and
conductor. As a composer mainly of
songs
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition ...
and as administrator of Dutch musical life, his influence during his lifetime was considerable.
Life
As a boy, Verhulst sang in a Catholic choir; here he distinguished himself by his gift for music. In his teens, he succeeded in becoming a first violinist in the court chapel of
King William I. In 1836,
Felix Mendelssohn, who was on holiday in
Scheveningen, was shown an overture written by Verhulst, and took him as a pupil; he began studying with Mendelssohn in 1838.
[Grove, George; Fuller-Maitland, John Alexander; Pratt, Waldo Selden; Boyd, Charles Newell (1910). . The Macmillan Company. page 261.]
In
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
, Verhulst was appointed as conductor of the Euterpe orchestra, for which he wrote his ''Symphony in E minor''. King
William II urged him to return to The Hague in 1842, where he dedicated himself to the writing of Dutch songs for some time. Six years later, he became the chief conductor of the Rotterdam Music Society (''Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Toonkunst''). For the celebration of its fifty-year anniversary in 1854, he succeeded in engaging many prominent musicians, such as
Franz Liszt.
The following years would bring a number of other appointments: 1860 as conductor of concerts at the scientific society
Diligentia Society in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
, and 1864 at both the orchestral society Caecilia and the
Felix Meritis
Felix Meritis ("Happy through Merit") is the name of an intellectual society in Amsterdam, but subsequently used for the building they built for themselves on the Keizersgracht.
History
It was built according to a winning design by the arch ...
Society in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
.
By accepting these positions, Verhulst had acquired a great amount of power and influence on Dutch music life. However, his conservative taste led to an increasing amount of criticism, particularly his refusal to endorse or execute performances of the music of
Berlioz,
Franz Liszt, and most of all
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
. If orchestra directors wished to see works by these composers performed, they had to handle the organisation themselves and engage a guest conductor - and risk the wrath of Verhulst, which could be considerable. This led to a public backlash, and in 1883 Diligentia imposed
Richard Hol as a substitute conductor for performances of Wagner. In 1886, Verhulst was appointed an honorary member of
Diligentia on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, but the membership was revoked after less than three months. Hereupon he withdrew from his other positions and from public life.
[Baker, Theodore; Slonimsky, Nicolas (1900). . G. Schirmer. pages 599-600.] He died in the town of Bloemendaal, aged 74.
Work
Verhulst wrote dozens of songs in the tradition of
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wo ...
and
Robert Schumann, usually on texts provided by the Dutch author
J. P. Heije. The textual quality of these songs is doubtful, but no-one can question the appropriateness of Verhulst's music. Key features of his works are a typical use of
chromaticism and long preludes and epilogues. His best songs approach the level of his idol,
Robert Schumann. He also wrote sacred music (e.g. the (at least) 3
Masses, Opus 20, 50 and 55), chamber works including three string quartets
[at least the third has been broadcast. The first two were published by Hofmeister of Leipzig as his opus 6 around 1839, according to Hofmeisters Monatsberichte, HMB 1839 p. 147 and HMB 1840 p. 19 - early 1840 receipt, so probably published 1839. The third, his opus 21 in E-flat, was published by 1845 (HMB 1845, p.82.) ]IMSLP
The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki softwar ...
has material for quartets 1 and 3. and orchestral music (several overtures, among which the ''Gijsbrecht van Aemstel overture'', and a Symphony in E minor, Opus 46). Most of his compositions stem from the time before his activities as a conductor and organiser.
Robert Schumann's ''
Overture, Scherzo and Finale'' is dedicated to Verhulst.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verhulst, Johannes
1816 births
1891 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century conductors (music)
Dutch classical composers
Dutch conductors (music)
Dutch male classical composers
Dutch Romantic composers
Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
Male conductors (music)
Musicians from The Hague
Pupils of Bernhard Klein