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Identification

Type:

Person

Preferred form:

Mengelberg, Willem (1871-1951)Other forms

Fechas de existencia:

Utrecht (Países Bajos) 1871-03-28 - Coira (Grisones, Suiza) 1951-03-20

History:

Dutch conductor, pianist, teacher and composer.

Born on 28 March 1871 in Utrecht (Netherlands), and passed away on 20 March 1951 in Chur (Switzerland). Son of the Danish sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Mengelberg.

He began studying music in his hometown with Johan Cornelis Marius van Riemsdijk and Richard Hol. He later attended the Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln, where he studied counterpoint with Adolf Jensen, piano with Isidor Seiss, organ with Friedrich Wilhelm Franke, singing with Benno Stolzenberg, and conducting with Franz Wüllner. He won first prize in conducting, piano and composition while at the conservatory. He made his conducting debut at Lucerne in 1892, and in 1895 he was named conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra on Wüllner's recommendation. He married Mathilde Mengelberg-Wubbe in 1898. He conducted the Frankfurt Museum Concerts from 1917 to 1920, and that year he presented the first great cycle of works by his friend Gustav Mahler during the Concertgebouw's 25th season. Between 1920 and 1930 he was in New York, where he conducted the National Symphony Orchestra and later the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mengelberg premiered works by noted composers such as Richard Strauss, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. In 1925 he began writing to Manuel de Falla. That year, on 29 December, Falla's "El retablo de maese Pedro" (1923) was presented in New York City, with members of the New York Philharmonic, Wanda Landowska on harpsichord and Mengelberg conducting. He was friends with the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, and at his initiative, "El retablo de maese Pedro" was presented in Amsterdam on 26 April 1926. That historic production featured Concertgebouw members under Mengelberg's baton, set designs and props by the painters Hernando Viñes, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz and Adolfo Armengod, and Luis Buñuel as stage manager. On 23 December 1926, he conducted Falla's "Noches en los jardines de España", performed by the Philharmonic Society and Elie Robert Schmitz on piano, at New York's Carnegie Hall.

Mengelberg received an honorary doctorate from Columbia University in 1928, and was hired to teach music at Universiteit Utrecht in 1934. He remained active throughout World War II, giving concerts in areas that were not occupied by German forces. However, after the conflict, he was fired by the Concertgebouw, and banned from conducting in the Netherlands due to his connections with the Nazi regime, causing him to retire to Switzerland.

Context:

Una parte de su legado se conserva en el Nederlands Muziek Instituut en La Haya. Contiene 1.162 partituras de dirección con anotaciones del propio Willem Mengelberg; algunas sugieren el contacto directo con los propios compositores como Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Sergei Rachmaninov, Ígor Stravinski o Béla Bartók.