Anthon van der Horst
Anthon van der Horst (full name Anthonie van der Horst) was a Dutch organist, conductor, composer, and music educator. Born in Amsterdam on 20 June 1899, he became particularly known for his work with the Netherlands Bach Society and for performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Naarden. He was regarded as a major authority on and admirer of Bach.
The son of music teacher Hendrik van der Horst and Johanna Allegonda Petronella van Acker, he studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1917 he graduated with distinction as an organ pupil of Jean Baptiste Charles de Pauw; Bernard Zweers taught him composition. He served as organist of the Walloon and English Church, and in 1919 became the first person in the Netherlands to receive the organ Prize of Excellence at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
Van der Horst helped found the Amsterdam Music Lyceum in 1921 and taught there from 1922 to 1927. He became director of the Hilversum Music Lyceum in 1927 and, from 1935, principal professor of organ at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he also served for several years as principal professor of choral and orchestral conducting. He held these posts until shortly before his death. His teaching influenced at least two generations of Dutch organists, including Piet Kee, Albert de Klerk, Charles de Wolff, Bernard Bartelink, and Gert Oost. He stressed interpretation founded on continual study of a work’s style and background.
From 1931, succeeding the ill Evert Cornelis, Van der Horst conducted annual Good Friday performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mass in B minor at the Great, or St Vitus, Church in Naarden. These performances became known throughout Europe. Seeking the closest possible approach to the original presentation, he conducted Bach from a photographic reproduction of the composer’s manuscript, an approach opposed to Willem Mengelberg’s Romantic conception of the Passion. Van der Horst continued the Naarden St Matthew Passion performances until shortly before his death in 1965 and chose his former organ pupil Charles de Wolff as his successor.
He conducted Amsterdam’s Royal Oratorio Society, The Hague’s Royal Choral Society Excelsior, the Leiden choir Sursum Corda, and the Christian Oratorio Society in Utrecht, and appeared as a guest conductor with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and other orchestras. He made several recordings with the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra, made up of Concertgebouw Orchestra members. In 1948, Groningen State University awarded him an honorary doctorate in theology in recognition of his interpretation and knowledge of Bach’s church music.
Van der Horst composed more than one hundred works, chiefly for organ, piano, unaccompanied choir, and choir with instrumental accompaniment. His output includes the 1943 Suite in modo coniuncto; the eight Choros, composed between 1932 and 1961; songs, chamber music, orchestral works, three symphonies, two organ concertos, and a violin concerto. Among his later orchestral works were Réflexions sonores (1962) and Salutation joyeuse for orchestra (1964). His predominantly tonal style used his own modal system, the modus conjunctus, with alternating whole- and semitone intervals. His works were performed more than forty times by the Concertgebouw Orchestra; he frequently conducted them himself, while Eduard van Beinum, Jean Martinon, and Bernard Haitink also conducted his music. He died in Hilversum on 7 March 1965.