Cornelius Berkhout
Cornelius Berkhout, full name Cornelis Franciscus Johannes Berkhout, was a Dutch pianist, musicologist and piano teacher. He was born in Amsterdam on 10 January 1891 and died there on 30 May 1958. He was the son of Alida Catharina Elisabeth Polak and the tailor Cornelis Berkhout. In 1921, he married the mezzo-soprano Geertrui “Truus” Scheepers.
Berkhout was one of the few pupils of Dirk Schäfer, with whom he completed his piano studies. Around 1915 he began a concert career, but increasing severe headaches compelled him to stop performing in 1938.
In the Netherlands, he was an important early advocate of such contemporary composers as Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Joaquín Turina, Béla Bartók, Erik Satie and Leoš Janáček. After ending his concert career, he devoted himself entirely to teaching. He taught at the Amsterdam Music Lyceum from 1921 to 1942 and, from the 1942 academic year until his death, was a principal-subject teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory together with Willem Smalt.
At the end of the 1940s, Berkhout began setting down his ideas about piano playing in writing. Based on his typescripts, The Art of Piano Playing was published in 2004, edited by Albert Brussee and Ben Smits. Regarded as his artistic and pedagogical testament, the book comprises two parts, The Expression of Technique and The Technique of Expression. Its chapter “Ondine” demonstrates how a pianist can develop a compelling interpretation of Debussy’s Prelude “Ondine” through close work with the score, allowing the performance to emerge from an aural conception and intellectual vision. The book is considered nearly unique among piano methods in grounding the act of piano playing in a philosophical framework.
His Studio 1011 at 1011 Prinsengracht in Amsterdam was a popular meeting place for writers, painters, sculptors, composers and pianists, who regularly gave lectures and concerts there, including after Berkhout’s death. His pupils also frequently performed there. Among his students were Greta Lang, Johan van der Lichte, Lee San San, Ben Smits, Kees Stokvis, Jan Wijn, Hans van den Hombergh and Wolfgang Wijdeveld; many became known as pianists and/or teachers.