The Netherlands is better known for its painters than its composers, but Dutch musicians have shaped the history of music in surprising ways. An Amsterdam organist trained the teachers of the north German organ school, a blind carillon player helped invent the modern tuned carillon, and in the 20th century Dutch composers became leaders in minimalism and electronic music.
Here are 10 of the greatest Dutch composers, from the Golden Age to film and pop, each with one piece to start with.
The short version
If you only explore three, start with Sweelinck for the organ music that pointed toward Bach, Louis Andriessen for the loud, driving De Staat, and Simeon ten Holt for the hypnotic Canto Ostinato.
1. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
1562–1621 · Dutch
Start with: “Variations on “Mein junges Leben hat ein End””“Maker of organists”
Sweelinck was born in Deventer in 1562 and grew up in Amsterdam, where his father was organist of the Oude Kerk. He took the same post himself as a young man and held it for the rest of his life. His music sits on the line between the Renaissance and the Baroque, and he was among the first major keyboard composers in Europe.
He was the first to write an organ fugue that builds from a single subject to a full climax, and the first to give the pedals a real fugal part. As a teacher he was known in Germany as the “maker of organists”, training Samuel Scheidt, Heinrich Scheidemann and others at the core of the north German organ school that led to Bach.
Listen on SpotifyApple MusicRelated: 15 Of The Greatest Renaissance Era Composers You Should Know
2. Constantijn Huygens
1596–1687 · Dutch
Start with: “Pathodia sacra et profana”Poet and diplomat
Constantijn Huygens was a poet, diplomat and composer of the Dutch Golden Age, secretary to two Princes of Orange and father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens. As a boy in The Hague he learned his notes from gold buttons on his jacket, taught a modern seven-note system by his father instead of the older hexachord method.
He studied viol, lute and harpsichord, and the lute became his instrument. On diplomatic trips he was asked to play at the Danish court and for James I of England, and later he took up the guitar. He wrote around 769 pieces, but the main surviving collection is Pathodia sacra et profana (1647), with songs in Latin, Italian and French.
3. Jacob van Eyck
c. 1590–1657 · Dutch
Start with: “Engels Nachtegaeltje (Der Fluyten Lust-hof)”Largest solo wind collection
Jacob van Eyck was a blind nobleman who became one of the best-known musicians of the Dutch Golden Age. He worked as carillonneur and bell expert in Utrecht, and found he could pick out the separate tones inside a bell by whistling at them, a skill René Descartes described in a letter to Marin Mersenne in 1638.
He showed the bellfounders Pieter and François Hemony how to tune bells precisely, and their tuned carillon for Zutphen in 1644 set the standard for the modern instrument. He was also a recorder virtuoso. His Der Fluyten Lust-hof, 143 pieces mostly built as variations on popular tunes, is the largest collection for a solo wind instrument in European history.
Listen on SpotifyApple MusicRelated: 15 Of The Greatest Baroque Period Composers You Should Know
4. Simeon ten Holt
1923–2012 · Dutch
Start with: “Canto Ostinato”
Simeon ten Holt was born in Bergen, North Holland, and studied with Jakob van Domselaer, who passed on his interest in the links between music, visual art and mathematics, and his love of the piano. Ten Holt wrote mostly for piano and groups of pianos, in a personal minimalist style.
His music is built from short cells of a few bars that the players repeat as many times as they choose, so no two performances are the same length. His most famous work, Canto Ostinato, which he began in 1976, is one of the best-known pieces in Dutch contemporary music and can last well over an hour.
5. Louis Andriessen
1939–2021 · Dutch
Start with: “De Staat”🏆 Grawemeyer Award
Born in Utrecht to a family of musicians, Louis Andriessen studied with his father Hendrik Andriessen, Kees van Baaren and Luciano Berio. He is often considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation and a founder of the Hague School, mixing American minimalism, big band jazz and the sharp edges of Stravinsky.
De Staat (1976), setting texts from Plato’s Republic, made his international name. From the 1970s he refused to write for the standard symphony orchestra, preferring loud ensembles with electric guitars and bass, as in Workers Union. His opera La Commedia, based on Dante, won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award, and he also wrote the operas Rosa and Writing to Vermeer with Peter Greenaway.
Listen on SpotifyApple MusicRelated: 20 Of The Greatest 20th-Century Composers You Need To Know
6. Henk Badings
1907–1987 · Dutch, born in Java
Start with: “Kain en Abel”Over 1,000 works
Henk Badings was born in Bandung on Java, in the Dutch East Indies, and came to the Netherlands as an orphan. His guardians steered him away from music, so he trained as a mining engineer in Delft and worked there until 1937. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and broke off lessons with Willem Pijper after Pijper tried to discourage him.
His first cello concerto was played at the Concertgebouw in 1931. From 1956 to 1963 he made pioneering electronic music at the Philips research laboratory, including the electronic ballet Kain en Abel, and he explored scales built on the overtone series and 31-note tuning. A postwar ban over his role under the occupation was lifted in 1947. He wrote more than 1,000 works, including 15 symphonies.
7. Ton de Leeuw
1926–1996 · Dutch
Start with: “Job”🏆 Prix Italia
Born in Rotterdam, Ton de Leeuw studied with Henk Badings and Olivier Messiaen and was influenced as a young man by Bartók. He taught at the University of Amsterdam and was professor of composition and electronic music at the Sweelinck Conservatory from 1959 to 1986. His radio oratorio Job won the Prix Italia in 1956.
A chance radio broadcast from an Arab station sparked a lifelong interest in music beyond Europe. He studied ethnomusicology with Jaap Kunst, visited India in 1961, and wrote Gending for Javanese gamelan. He composed about 160 works, including three operas, and Messiaen described his later music as “essentially diatonic”.
8. Willem Pijper
1894–1947 · Dutch
Start with: “Symphony No. 3”
Willem Pijper was born in Zeist, near Utrecht, to strict Calvinist parents. His father taught him the notes while playing psalms on the harmonium. Apart from brief study with Johan Wagenaar he was self-taught, yet he became one of the most important Dutch composers of the early 20th century and taught many of the next generation as principal of the Rotterdam Conservatory.
He built his works from small “germ cells”, and from 1919 his music became polytonal. In Dutch the octatonic scale is still called the “Pijper scale”. He was also a fierce critic, whose attacks helped drive the conductor Jan van Gilse out of the Utrecht orchestra in 1921, and in 1926 he co-founded the journal De Muziek.
9. Henny Vrienten
1948–2022 · Dutch
Start with: “Is Dit Alles”
Henny Vrienten was the singer and bass player of Doe Maar, the ska and reggae-influenced pop band that became a sensation in the Netherlands and Belgium in the early 1980s. He joined in 1980 and wrote hits such as “Is Dit Alles”, a song about a struggling marriage. Earlier he had released a single under the name Ruby Carmichael.
After Doe Maar’s farewell shows in 1984 he turned to writing for film and television. His scores include the thriller The Vanishing (Spoorloos), Left Luggage and Kruimeltje, and he wrote music for the Dutch Sesame Street. He kept recording solo and with the group Vreemde Kostgangers.
10. Herman Beeftink
Born 1953 · Dutch-American
Start with: “Tales of a Pirate”
Herman Beeftink studied piano and composition at the Utrecht Conservatory and taught in its jazz department before moving to California in 1982. In Los Angeles he worked as a studio musician on series such as Cheers, Roseanne and Home Improvement, and wrote classical-style music for more than 50 episodes of Gilmore Girls.
His music has been licensed for more than 100 films and TV productions, including The Simpsons Movie, Freaky Friday and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as well as History Channel documentaries. He is also a popular composer of flute music, with pieces such as Birds and Tales of a Pirate played by students and professionals.
Which Dutch composer is your favorite?
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Summing up
Dutch music has been inventive for four centuries. Sweelinck and van Eyck shaped the organ and the carillon, Pijper and Badings opened Dutch music to new harmonies and electronic sound, Andriessen and ten Holt gave minimalism a Dutch accent, and Vrienten and Beeftink brought that musicianship to pop, film and television.
Which Dutch composer would you add to the list?
