Willem Andriessen was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 pianist and composer.

Biography

Andriessen studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory, completing his studies in 1906, and was awarded the school's Outstanding Achievement Prize for piano. He appeared frequently in concert performances in the Netherlands, and was noted for his interpretations of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, though he also played piano pieces from contemporaries such as Debussy, Ravel, Bartok and Pijper.

Andriessen taught at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (1910–18) and following this at the Muziekschool in Rotterdam after 1924. He was appointed director of the Amsterdam Conservatory from 1937 to 1953. He also gave radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 broadcasts of performances which included analyses of compositions. In 1942, following the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Andriessen and his brother Hendrik

Hendrik Andriessen

Hendrik Franciscus Andriessen was a Dutch composer and organist. He is remembered most of all for his improvisation at the organ and for the renewal of Catholic liturgical music in the Netherlands. Andriessen composed in a musical idiom that revealed strong French influences...

 were imprisoned for a year, during which time Willem gave lecture-concerts for the prisoners.

Andriessen's compositional output was small due to the demands of performance and teaching, but he was nonetheless awarded a number of compositional prizes in Belgium and Holland.

Orchestral

• Overture (1905)
• Piano Concerto in Db (1908)
• Scherzo, Hei, t'was in de Mei (1912, R/1956)

Choral

• Mass (1914-16)
• Sub tuum praesidium
  Sub tuum praesidium
  Beneath thy protection is the oldest extant hymn to the Theotokos .-History:The earliest text of this hymn was found in a Coptic Orthodox Christmas liturgy of the third century. It is written in Greek and dates to approximately 250. It is used in the Coptic liturgy to this day, as well as in the...
  
  (1943, for male chorus)
• Salve coeli digna (1944)
• Ave Maria (1954, for female chorus)
• Exsultate deo (1954)
• Missa brevis (1963)

Solo vocal

• 4 liederen (1906)
• Bruidsliederen (1909)
• 3 liederen (1909)
• 3 liederen (1911)
• 2 liederen (1913)

Solo piano

• Sonata (1934)
• Praeludia (1942-50)
• Sonatine (1945)
• Praeludium (1960, for the left hand)

Source

• Jos Wouters, Ronald Vermeulen. "Willem Andriessen". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians online.