Thom de Klerk - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Thom de Klerk (the Netherlands, the Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, May 10, 1912 - Abcoude, October 13, 1966). Dutch bassoonist, double reed

Double reed

A double reed is a type of reed used to produce sound in various wind instruments. The term double reed comes from the fact that there are two pieces of cane vibrating against each other. A single reed consists of one piece of cane which vibrates against a mouthpiece made of metal, hardened...

maker, music teacher, conductor and music director. Thom de Klerk was the first solo bassoonist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is a symphony orchestra of the Netherlands, based at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1988, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra...

from 1935 until 1966. He was successful with the directors Willem Mengelberg

Willem Mengelberg

Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...

, Eduard van Beinum

Eduard van Beinum

Eduard van Beinum was a Dutch conductor.-Biography:Beinum was born in Arnhem, Netherlands, where he received his first violin and piano lessons at an early age. He joined the Arnhem Orchestra as a violinist in 1918. His grandfather was conductor of a military band...

and Bernard Haitink

Bernard Haitink

Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE is a Dutch conductor and violinist.- Early life :Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam...

. Guest directors like Eugen Jochum

Eugen Jochum

Eugen Jochum was an eminent German conductor.Born in Babenhausen, near Augsburg, Germany, Jochum studied the piano and organ in Augsburg until 1922. He then studied conducting in Munich...

, Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...

and Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...

made special requests for his presence in the orchestra.

Study

Thom de Klerk studied at the Royal Conservatorium in the Hague

The Hague

with Jacq. Poons, an old school teacher who let his pupils study musical scales for hours on end. Some of Poons’s other pupils were David Meyer and Louis Stotijn, who both later became solo bassoonists in the Residentie Orchestra

Residentie Orchestra

Het Residentie Orkest is a Dutch orchestra based in The Hague. Its primary venue is the Dr. Anton Philipszaal....

in the Hague. In 1935 Thom de Klerk, aged twenty-three, won the appointment to first solo bassoonist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

under the direction of Willem Mengelberg

Willem Mengelberg

Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...

. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

was voted best symphony orchestra in the world in 2008, being in the top ten since its foundation.

Building bassoons

Just after the Second World War de Klerk was invited to be a consultant to the renowned builder of music instruments Cabart

Cabart

Cabart is a French brand of musical wind instruments. As an independent brand, it was declined by the names Thibouville-Cabart and Cabart a Paris. The name was bought out by F. Lorée in 1974 to name its range of student-level oboes: Cabart 74 and Cabart.- Brand origins :The Thibouville family is...

in Paris. The story goes that during the Second World War the Nazis had forced the French oboe factory Cabart to build German bassoons, though the archive proving or disproving this account was lost. The bassoons produced after the Second World War upon approval received the hallmark Cabart/de Klerk.

In 1950 Thom de Klerk started his own bassoon atelier. At first on the top floor of his home in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, later in a larger atelier in the very heart of that city in a historical street called the Nes, on which site the Flemish Cultural Centre has now been built. The number of bassoons produced in total remained modest though. The talents of Thom de Klerk were many, however being a business man was not one of them. Running the business on a day to day basis he left to his in-laws - not one of his brightest ideas. Fairly soon in 1952, the bassoon atelier went bankrupt.

Bassoonist

De Klerk was an extrovert and he did not hide the extremities of his character. Living his life boldly, at least in the eyes of the average person of the fifties, which according to de Klerk’s son Thomas was perhaps rooted in his insecure home life as a child. His father once told him the story that once as a child he came home from school to discover that his parents had moved house! Possibly also due to his unstable upbringing Thom de Klerk was not the most easy going person to work with - some bassoonists were not prepared to play in the same group.

Professionally and emotionally moved he was a fervent admirer of the works of Mozart. ‘For Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

I gladly play to the angels in heaven,’ he said more than once. On the other hand he was outspoken in his disapproval of the works of Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

: ‘Ten measly notes in those damned almost never-ending symphonies,’ he exclaimed once in despair, his remedy being to fall asleep on stage during some of these concerts between those scarce notes. When a particular ostinato

Ostinato

In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...

in the music was played or when the timpani were played in a certain sequence he had trained himself to wake up to perform his part meticulously, after which he again dozed off. This kind of behaviour could drive his fellow musicians to despair.

There is a particular anecdote that de Klerk once at rehearsals came on stage without his bassoon when the conductor Willem Mengelberg

Willem Mengelberg

Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...

asked him, ‘Why don’t you play, Mister de Klerk?’ to which de Klerk replied, ‘My bassoon is at the pawn shop, if you give me some money, I will play again.’ He frequently got away with this typical de Klerk behaviour, because in company he usually had humour on his side - that was the kind of person he was. Though Thom de Klerk almost routinely manifested himself to be perhaps a polemical person, his former pupils, amongst whom Joep Terweij, will still not hear one iota of the reputed controversial attitude.

For an extremely gifted person like Thom de Klerk the provincial fifties atmosphere of his home country proved too small a basis to thrive. He felt more appreciated in the United States and the United Kingdom, or in Germany where culture was not the last entry in the book keeping of the realm, where a musician of his stature was addressed with the esteemed title of Herr Professor. How shrill and stinging the contrast was with the gossip in the neighbourhood in Amsterdam where he lived with his family, where it was whispered he probably was a criminal or a burglar because he always left home in the evening carrying a suitcase.

The recognition and acknowledgement of his very unique way of playing the bassoon not only spread worldwide geographically but also in time. His name still produces many hits with all kinds of search engines, amongst which many testimonials of former pupils, now masters in their own right, who regard him and refer to him as their master.

Reed making

Apart from all the talents and qualities Thom de Klerk had, he also made outstanding reeds. In the wake of the international tours with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

de Klerk gathered an international clientele for his reeds, very unusual for that time. He never thought about the financial returns this trade could get him. As said, he was not much of a business person. Being able to craft superior double reeds provided Thom de Klerk with the basis for the exceptional clear and tuneful sound of his bassoon play. In its turn his sound was among other elements the basis for his accomplishment and success as a bassoonist.

Recordings

It was not at all customary in his days to record albums, so there are just two solo recordings known, apart from the many recordings he made as a member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The two are: Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in Es-dur, KV 297b (Anh. 9) by the Concertgebouw Quartet of which de Klerk was the bassoonist, accompanied by the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra

Netherlands Chamber Orchestra

The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra is a chamber orchestra based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The NKO is part of the Stichting Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest , along with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra . The core of the NKO is a group of at least 20 string instrumentalists...

under the direction of Szymon Goldberg

Szymon Goldberg

Szymon Goldberg was a Polish-born American violinist and conductor.Born in Włocławek, Congress Poland, Goldberg played the violin as a child growing up in Warsaw...

. This recording is still available on cd in the series Philips Classic Productions, volume 37 (Philips 462 552-2). Furthermore Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto B-dur, KV 191 accompanied by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

-History:In 1900, Ferdinand Löwe founded the orchestra as the Wiener Concertverein . In 1913 it moved into the Konzerthaus, Vienna. In 1919 it merged with the Tonkünstler Orchestra. In 1933 it acquired its current name...

under the direction of Bernard Paumgartner (Fontana 894 053 ZKY & Philips 839 517 VGY). In all three parts of the concerto Thom de Klerk replaced Mozart’s cadenzas with cadenzas of his own making, which earned him much acclaim with the critics - the cadenzas are still studied today. Another peculiarity of this recording is that each movement of the concerto was recorded in just one take. The Fontana label has been acquired by Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

in turn acquired by Universal Classics. Possibly this company will republish this concerto in 2012 at the one hundredth birthday of Thom de Klerk. For the time being this concerto has been digitally remastered and privately published by his son Thomas.

The Netherlands Wind Ensemble

Besides being a bassoon player, bassoon maker and reed maker Thom de Klerk also was a music teacher at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Conservatorium van Amsterdam

The Conservatorium van Amsterdam is a Dutch academy of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, the city's vocational university of arts...

, the Sweelinck Academy. He was a teacher of of course the bassoon and also of the ensemble class. In this last capacity he was able to select the best students, among others Joep Terweij (bassoon), Martine Bakker (flute), George Pieterson (clarinet), Jaap Verhaar (French horn) and Edo de Waart

Edo de Waart

Edo de Waart is a Dutch conductor, and the Music Director of both the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra....

(oboe). With these students he founded the Aulos Wind Ensemble, a group he expounded in 1959 and renamed the Netherlands Wind Ensemble.

Being the founder, conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble Thom de Klerk has made ground-breaking achievements in rediscovering manuscripts the great composers wrote for wind ensembles and that were thought lost or that were forgotten over time. To this end he travelled the world to research the music libraries. He also retreaded many works for string ensembles to fit the requirements of a wind ensemble. Until the foundation of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble wind ensembles were a rarity, also worldwide. In the Netherlands only the Concertgebouw Quartet and Quintet existed, both of which de Klerk was the bassoonist. It was de Klerk’s aim with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble to create the wind-counterpart of the world famous Italian string chamber orchestra I Musici

I Musici

I Musici is an Italian chamber orchestra from Rome formed in 1952. They are well known for their interpretations of Baroque and other works, particularly Antonio Vivaldi and Tomaso Albinoni....

which was founded seven years earlier. Within a relative short period of time under the artistic direction of Thom de Klerk the Netherlands Wind Ensemble achieved prominent international acclaim.

In the time frame he considered ending his work for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to be able to dedicate all of his energy to music - and archive research and the artistic - and music direction of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, at fifty-four years old Thom de Klerk unexpectedly died.

External links

W. A. Mozart, Bassoon Concerto B-dur, KV 191, Thom de Klerk and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, direction Bernard Paumgartner

In the atelier of the Netherlands bassoon builder. Film snippet “Beeld en Geluid, the Netherlands”: Thom de Klerk, First bassoonist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, builds bassoons (Amsterdam).

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