Röntgen, Julius Engelbert |
| COMPOSER, PIANIST (GERMANY) |
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BORN 9 May 1855, Leipzig, Sachsen - DIED 13 Sep 1932, Utrecht GRAVE LOCATION Amsterdam, Noord-Holland: Zorgvlied, Amsteldijk (N-I-2) |
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Julius Engelbert Röntgen was the son of the first violinist of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Engelbert Röntgen. His mother was the pianist Pauline Klengel. His parents and grandparents taught him music. His first piano teacher was Carl Reinecke, the director of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. When he was fourteen years old he visited Franz Liszt in Weimar. At the house of Heinrich von Herzogenberg in Leipzig he first met Johannes Brahms, who would become a friend. In Munich he studied piano under Franz Lachner. who had been a friend of Schubert. When he was eighteen years old he became a professional pianist. He met the Swedish music student Amanda Maier and he married her in 1880. In 1877 he started working as a piano teacher in Amsterdam, preferring that city above Vienna. Between 1878 and 1885 Brahms frequently visited him in Amsterdam. In 1883 Röntgen founded the Conservatory in Amsterdam together with Frans Coenen and Daniel de Lange. He was also involved in the foundation of the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam in 1884, but when he applied to be its director, but Hans von Bülow was preferred because Röntgen's abilities as a conductor were doubted. Von Bülow refused and Willem Kes obtained the position. Röntgen now concentrated on his work for the conservatory and on his own compositions. As a pianist he accompanied the violinist Carl Flesch, the cellist Pablo Casals and the singer Johannes Messchaert. Whenever he travelled to Vienna with Messchaert he always met Brahms there. He often spent the summers with his family in Denmark. After Amanda died in 1894 he married the piano teacher Abrahamina des Amorie van der Hoeven. After the First World War ended he became a dutch citizen in 1919. He wrote many symphonies and concertos and also harmonized and arranged traditional Dutch melodies. In the 1920s he experimented with atonal music. He retired from public life in 1924 and settled in Bilthoven near Utrecht where he lived in his country house Gaudeamus. He was visited there by Pablo Casals, Percy Grainger and others. He died in a hospital in Utrecht in 1932. Family • Wife: Röntgen-Maier, Amanda (1880-1894, Landskrona, Scania) Related persons • was a friend of Brahms, Johannes • was pupil of Lachner, Franz von • visited Liszt, Franz • was pupil of Reinecke, Carl • knew Stockhausen, Julius |
| Images | |
 The grave of Julius Röntgen and Amanda Röntgen-Maier at Zorgvlied, Amsterdam. Picture by Androom (11 Jan 2020) |
 The grave of Julius Röntgen at Zorgvlied, Amsterdam. Picture by Androom (11 Jan 2020) |
Sources • Julius Röntgen - Wikipedia |
