Jan Ingenhoven

Johannes Theodorus (Jan) Ingenhoven (Breda, 19 May 1876 – Hoenderloo, 20 May 1951), was a Dutch composer and conductor. He was one of the first to introduce new influences shaping twentieth century European music into the Netherlands before World War 1, and also took contemporary Dutch music into Germany.

Career 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. 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. 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) String Trio (Präludium - Intermezzo - Finale) (published 1928) What a silence, for a capella male voices