Daniël de Lange
Daniël de Lange was a Dutch musician who worked as a composer, choral conductor, pianist, organist, organizer, music educator, and music critic. He was born in Rotterdam on 11 July 1841 and died in Point Loma, California, on 31 January 1918.
He was the son of the Rotterdam musician Samuel de Lange Sr. and Johanna Molijn, and the younger brother of the pianist and organist Samuel de Lange Jr. His first music lessons came from his father. He studied cello with Simon Ganz and music theory with Johannes Verhulst in Rotterdam, then continued in Brussels with the cellist Adrien François Servais and the organist Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens. Early in his career he was chiefly known as an accomplished cellist, and concert tours took him far into Eastern Europe.
On Karol Mikuli's recommendation, De Lange and his brother taught at the conservatory in Lemberg from 1860 to 1863; Daniël was only nineteen when appointed. After a short period back in Rotterdam, he moved to Paris, where he worked mainly as an organist, composer, and piano teacher. He became friends with Stephen Heller, Lalo, Berlioz, Massenet, and Bizet, and his private pupils included Ernest Chausson. During this period he composed symphonies, songs, and choral works, including the double-choir Requiem of 1868.
In 1870 De Lange returned to the Netherlands and opened a music school in Zaandam. He became the Netherlands' first official music critic through his appointment at Het Nieuws van de Dag. An active organizer and successful choral conductor, he held a prominent role for decades in the Society for the Promotion of Music and the Association for Dutch Music History. In 1884 he founded the Amsterdam Conservatory with Johannes Messchaert, Frans Coenen, and Julius Röntgen; he taught there and served as its director from 1895 to 1913.
In 1881 he founded the Netherlands A Cappella Choir, whose members included Johannes Messchaert, Aaltje Reddingius, Arnold Spoel, and the singer Anna Maria Gouda, whom he later married. With the ensemble he toured throughout Europe and achieved major success performing Dutch Renaissance music. He also researched Eastern gamelan music extensively and published educational and pedagogical writings; these commitments gradually pushed composition into the background.
De Lange married Alida Maria Wilhelmina van Oordt in 1869. They had two sons and four daughters, one of whom died young. Following her death in 1910, he married Anna Maria Gouda in 1911. In 1914 he and Gouda moved to Point Loma, California, where he continued to work on educational music projects and set out his later ideas in the booklet Thoughts on Music.
His surviving output includes songs, choral works, the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 4, a cello concerto, and the Requiem. The opera The Fall of Kuilenburg and a Symphony No. 2 in D major are untraceable. More open than his conservative brother to the influences of Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt, he also wrote songs that entered popular collections, including “The Little Mouse” and “Dutch Sea.” More than forty of his songs appeared in the 1891 collection Spring Life. Recordings have included the First Symphony and the Requiem; a Netherlands Chamber Choir recording of the latter received an Edison award.