1895-1945

Mengelberg is pictured with a cigar in one hand and a ribboned laurel wreath, traditionally given to sports heroes after a victory, in the other. That same year, Mengelberg was named most popular Dutchman on the basis of a survey carried out by the widely read magazine Het Leven. The Concertgebouw Orchestra, too, was both famed and admired.

The young Willem

Willem Mengelberg was born in Utrecht in 1871 to German parents, who had moved to the Netherlands after his father Friedrich Wilhelm established a studio in Utrecht as a sculptor and painter of ecclesiastical art. The young Willem had composition and piano lessons with Johan van Riemsdijk and Richard Hol, going on to study at the Cologne Conservatory with Franz Wüllner, among other teachers. After completing his studies, Mengelberg established himself as a choral and orchestral conductor in Lucerne. In 1895, he was invited to succeed Willem Kes as chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Discipline

At the age of twenty-four, Mengelberg took charge of the Amsterdam-based orchestra, which was ready to embark on a new chapter. During its first seven years of existence, Willem Kes had brought strict discipline to what had originally been a rather disorderly affair. For the demanding Mengelberg, too, discipline was an important principle. As chief conductor, he was a perfectionist, a self-willed man and an authoritarian from the outset.

Legendary relationships

Upon assuming the post, Mengelberg enriched the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s repertoire with works by modern composers. Music which audiences at the time were not necessarily receptive to would go on to be incorporated in the orchestra’s core repertoire. Mengelberg maintained personal relationships with Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Serge Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky, among others, resulting in close ties between the orchestra and these distinguished composers. Strauss would even dedicate Ein Heldenleben to Mengelberg and his orchestra.

Mengelberg invited composers to come and conduct their own works as well. Debussy, Schoenberg, Diepenbrock, Schreker, Ravel and Milhaud also led the orchestra in their own music on multiple occasions. It was the birth of a tradition – to this day, contemporary composers regularly lead the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in their own music.

Gustav Mahler

Willem Mengelberg played a particularly pioneering role as a champion of the music of Gustav Mahler. From the moment Mengelberg attended the premiere of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 in 1902, he was convinced that the Austrian composer was the ‘Beethoven of his time’. A friendship developed between the two, and Mengelberg persuaded Mahler to come to Amsterdam four times starting from 1903 to lead the Concertgebouw Orchestra in his own music. Mahler even stayed at Mengelberg’s home in Amsterdam’s van Eeghenstraat.

Mengelberg was very much a trailblazer in this respect. While an all-Mahler programme practically guarantees a full house today, in Mengelberg’s time, Mahler’s music divided audiences. Today’s international Mahler culture – the Dutch Mahler tradition in particular – would have been inconceivable had Mengelberg not played this key role with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Artistic ambassador

With the concerts which Mengelberg conducted outside the Netherlands, the Concertgebouw Orchestra broke on to the international music scene. A first overseas tour in 1898 – to the Norwegian city of Bergen at Edvard Grieg’s invitation – was a great success. Tours to Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, France and Great Britain would follow. After establishing an international reputation for itself, the orchestra would go on to play a role as an artistic ambassador of the Netherlands, with Mengelberg as its figurehead.

Celebrated and reviled

As admired and celebrated as Mengelberg was before the war, so was he reviled in the period that followed. Mengelberg’s love of Germany and German musical culture had always been in evidence. During the war, Mengelberg failed to distance himself from the German occupiers and assumed a position of compliance. The result was a shift in public opinion: no longer was he seen as a national hero – now he was a collaborator. The Central Council of Honour for music banned him from conducting in the Netherlands, and his Dutch passport was confiscated. Mengelberg spent his final years in exile at Chasa Mengelberg, his home in Switzerland.