Willem Andriessen

Vocation

Family

Dutch pianist, conductor and composer. Member of a noted family of musicians and artists. He was the son of the organist, conductor and composer Nicolaas Hendrik Andriessen (9 May 1845, Hilversum – 16 May 1913, Haarlem) and the landscape paintress Gesina Johanna Francina Vester (23 Decembter 1857, Heemstede - 20 January 1939, Haarlem). The conductor and composer Hendrik Franciscus Andriessen (17 September 1892, Haarlem - 17 April 1981, Haarlem), the pianist Johanna Cecilia Andriessen(1 December 1902, Haarlem - 10 October 1986,) and the sculptor Mari Silvester Andriessen (4 December 1897, Haarlem - 7 December 1979, Haarlem) were his siblings. Johanna married the Catholic politician Petrus Johannes (Piet) Witteman (26 February 1892, Nieuwendam - 28 September 1972, Haarlem) and became the mother of the Dutch journalist and television host (and Mozart lover) Paul Witteman (Haarlem, 14 October 1946). His brother Hendrik was the father of the composer (his nephew) Jurriaan Andriessen (15 November 1925, Haarlem – 19 August 1996, The Hague). Andriessen received his first musical education from his father. He studied from 1903 to 1906 under J.B. de Pauw (piano) and Bernard Zweers (composition ) at the Amsterdam Conservatory. On the advice of Mr. D. Lange and Jean Baptiste Charles Peacock, he studied further and achieved in 1908 the "Prix d'Excellence" with his Piano Concerto in D flat (1906), the 5th piano concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven and other works. In the years 1908, 1909 and 1910 he performed as a soloist in Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden, Leipzig and in the Netherlands. He refused an An invitation (April 1910) to head a musical arrangement in Baltimore. In 1910 he became professor of piano at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and at the Conservatory of Rotterdam , before leaving in 1937 as successor of Sem Dresden was appointed director of the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1962 an anthology "Mensen in de muziek" (People in the music) was published of his publications on musical subjects in the Haarlemsche Dagblad. Andriessen died on the First Easter day 29 March 1964 in Amsterdam at the age of 76, after he had become unwell during a piano exam. Personal In 1912 he married the opera singer Marie Bies. He got a son and a daughter who be came a nun. Link to Wikipedia