Life
Born in Utrecht, out of wedlock, he was the son of Cypriaan Gerard Berger van Hengst and Johanna Wagenaar. Wagenaar's parents were of different social strata: his father was an aristocrat, while his mother was of more humble origins. For this reason, Wagenaar's parents were not married, and thus Wagenaar received his mother's name as his family name. While Wagenaar resented that his parents never got married, he was by no means neglected by his father.
Wagenaar evidenced a talent for music as a child. However, he did not begin to receive a formal education in music until age 13, with subsequent instruction in piano, organ, violin, theory, and composition. He was under the tutelage of the composer Richard Hol and the organist Samuel de Lange, Jr. In 1892, he studied with Brahms' friend Heinrich von Herzogenberg in Berlin, specifically taking lessons in counterpoint.
In 1888, he succeeded Richard Hol as organist of Utrecht Cathedral, and earned fame for his skills at organ performances. In Utrecht, Wagenaar became a teacher at the music school in 1896, and the school's director in 1904. He also received an appointment with the Utrecht Municipal Orchestra (Utrechtsch Stedelijk Orkest). Between 1919 and 1937, Wagenaar was director of the Royal Conservatory at the Hague. His pupils included Peter van Anrooy, Emile Enthoven, Henri van Goudoever, Alexander Voormolen, Leon Orthel, Allard de Ridder, Willem Pijper and Bernard Wagenaar.
On 23 July 1897, Wagenaar married Dina Petronella van Valkenburg. They had two daughters. He died in Den Haag.
Read more about this topic: Johan Wagenaar
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don’t see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.”
—Donald Sinden (b. 1923)