Peter van Anrooy - Piano Quintet

Peter van Anrooy

 

Piano Quintet

1. Allegro, non troppo - 00:00
2. Scherzo - 11:08
3. Andante tranquillo - 17:38
4. Finale - 28:09

Peter van Anrooy was a Dutch composer. He was born in Zaltbommel on October 13. At age 8, he composes his first pieces for piano. He is raised in Utrecht, because of his father’s death, and takes lessons there at the music school of the Society for the Advancement of Music. His teachers are Miss R. de Bruyn (piano), Simon Adelsberg (violin), Gerrit Veerman (violin) and Johan Wagenaar (composition and music theory). In his youth, he is a violinist in the Utrecht City Orchestra, which performs several of his youth works. The conductor, Wouter Hutschenruyter, is accommodating to “the composer”.

In 1899 van Anrooy leaves the Utrecht City Orchestra to study orchestral conducting with Willem Kes, the former chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, first in Dresden and later in Moscow. There, he also takes composition lessons from Sergey Taneyev. In 1902 van Anrooy returns to the Netherlands to serve as deputy kapellmeister of the Amsterdamsch Lyrisch Toneel, but soon after, this opera company is closed. He earns a living through music lessons (teaching the violin, ensemble playing and harmony) and conducting the high-quality J. Pzn. Sweelinck student orchestra. In 1914 Peter van Anrooy receives an honorary doctorate – presented personally by professor Huizinga – from the University of Groningen.

In 1915, he becomes a guest conductor of The Hague Philharmonic. There he shows himself a modern orchestral leader who demands much from the ensemble and, alongside the classical standard repertoire, adds contemporary music, not least of which the music of Dutch composers, such as Willem Pijper, Hendrik Andriessen and Henk Badings. In 1929 van Anrooy becomes the director of The Hague chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Music. Before a Sunday afternoon concert on October 30, 1931, he delivers an agitated address in which he condemns the negativity of music journalism in The Hague. In 1935, he resigns from The Hague Philharmonic, in part because of differences over his programming policies. During the last seven years of his life, Peter van Anrooy presents the AVRO radio’s popular biweekly programme 'Inleiding tot Muziekbegrip' (Introduction to Musical Understanding).