Julius Röntgen: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor

It is my sincere desire that any and all possible remuneration due me go instead to all the participants in this project. It is with the most sincere gratitude to the soloist, Ragin Wenk-Wolff for her permission to present the premiere recording of this concerto that I share it with all of you. Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (1902) I. Allegro ben moderato 0:00 II. Lento 14:08 III. Allegro non troppo 23:30 Ragin Wenk-Wolff, violin Dvořák Symphony Orchestra Stanislav Bogunia, conductor Julius Röntgen was born in Leipzig, Germany, to a family of musicians. His father, the Dutch born Engelbert Röntgen, was first violinist in the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig; his mother, Pauline Klengel, was a pianist, an aunt of the renowned cellist Julius Klengel, born in 1859. Julius was a gifted child. Neither he nor his sisters attended school; he was taught music by his parents and grandparents, and other subjects by private tutors. His first piano teacher was Carl Reinecke, the director of the Gewandhaus orchestra, while his early compositions were influenced by Reinecke, but also by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. In 1870, at the age of 14, Julius Röntgen visited Franz Liszt in Weimar; after playing piano for him he was invited to a soiree at Liszt’s house. In Leipzig, he and his parents were part of the musical circle around Heinrich von Herzogenberg, and it was at their house that he first met Brahms. Later Röntgen moved to Munich, where he studied piano under Franz Lachner, a friend of Franz Schubert. At the age of 18 he became a professional pianist. During a concert tour through southern Germany he became acquainted with the singer Julius Stockhausen; at this time he also met a Swedish music student Amanda Maier, whom he would marry in 1880. In 1877 Röntgen had to make a decision whether to go to Vienna or Amsterdam. He chose Amsterdam, and became a piano teacher in the music school there. The aristocratic politician Alexander de Savornin Lohman, who was professor of law at the University of Amsterdam and an important figure in the cultural life of that city, was a friend of Röntgen’s father, and he promised to take young Julius under his wing. Between 1878 and 1885 Brahms was a frequent visitor in Amsterdam. In 1887 Röntgen performed Brahms’s second piano concerto, conducted by the composer himself. Röntgen also played an important part in establishing institutions for classical music in Amsterdam. In 1883, in association with composers Frans Coenen and Daniel de Lange, Röntgen founded the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1884 Röntgen was heavily involved in the foundation of the Concertgebouw. Unfortunately, he was passed over as the Concertgebouw’s first music director. Röntgen turned with greater energy to composing chamber music and to his work for the Conservatory. He became a renowned accompanying pianist, working for the great violinist Carl Flesch, the singer Johannes Messchaert, and the cello player Pablo Casals. Travelling with Messchaert he came to Vienna at least once a year, where he would always meet Brahms. For some years, Röntgen and his sons performed together as a piano trio. After the death of his wife Amanda in 1894, Röntgen married the gifted piano teacher Abrahamina des Amorie van der Hoeven. The children of the second marriage also became professional musicians. Röntgen’s son Joachim, a violinist, founded the Röntgen String Quartet. At the end of the First World War, in 1919, Röntgen became a naturalized Dutch citizen. One of his sons was taken prisoner by the Germans during the war, while another son emigrated to the United States where he became a soldier in the US army. In the years from 1920 on Röntgen experimented with atonal music; he wrote e.g. a bi-tonal symphony in 1930. Sometimes he performed as a piano accompanist in silent screen productions with popular and folk scenes of the film-maker Dirk van der Ven in the Tuschinski cinema theatre in Amsterdam. In 1924 Röntgen retired from public life. He moved to Bilthoven, a small village near Utrecht. In 1930 Röntgen received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, where his friend Donald Francis Tovey was professor. During this visit Tovey performed a new Röntgen symphony with the Reid Orchestra and Röntgen was the soloist in his most recent two piano concertos in the same programme. Two years after Röntgen’s death, Tovey described him as “one of the greatest masters of absolute music I have ever known“. After Second World War the villa Gaudeamus became the seat of the Gaudeamus society, whose aim is to promote contemporary Dutch music. Röntgen died in a hospital in Utrecht, Netherlands on September 14, 1932.