#Reinbertbio one year on: biographer looks back

There was once a celebrity (pianist, composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw), a biographer (Thea Derks) and a riot. The Lion opposed the release of his biography Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody and made no secret of it. In the TV programme Summer Guests, he even brushed off the dissertation-like standard work as an almost endearing fluff book.

We are now over a year on. How has that year gone for the biographer? Excellent, in her own opinion. "The reviews were positive, the book got a second printing after only a short time and was in the top 3 best-selling music books of 2014. But an almost even bigger boost was the number of emails and phone calls I received from people I had interviewed for my biography. They completely recognised Reinbert, themselves and the era in what I had written. 'Well done!', I kept hearing."

The publication also generated a nice spin-off: , "I give lectures throughout the Netherlands and since September I have been presenting the programme every month Panorama the Lion at the Concertzender. It is followed by a loyal bevy of listeners, including some interviewees with whom I have become friends."

Also, is she now back on 'speaking terms' with The Lion himself? That is disappointing. "We haven't spoken to each other again. When I recently asked him to be my guest at an introduction to a concert he was conducting, he let it be known through the ensemble that he was not available."

Myths

The reception from the newsroom may have been positive, but some issues did get snowed under due to the heavy focus on the controversy. Derks notes that the 'myths' she corrected are often spoon-fed back unthinkingly anyway. "It starts with Reinbert supposedly having to fight the music on his environment. In reality, he comes from an intellectual nest, where there was a lot of love for music. His parents had a nice record collection and a subscription to the Concertgebouw. He and his brothers took piano lessons as a matter of course. Music also played an important role in his family; soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek, for instance, is Reinbert's second cousin."

Derks does puncture more myths in her book. For instance, De Leeuw is seen as the man who got all kinds of things done. This sometimes overlooks the contribution of others. "Take, for instance, the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst. In 1982, Reinbert is said to have created it pretty much single-handedly. People like Nico Schuyt, Misha Mengelberg and Rob du Bois had been pushing for it since the 1960s. He only gave the final push. In my book, I give those others the credit they deserve."

Newsprint

It also refutes the notion that the Netherlands was "glued shut with newsprint" in terms of new music in the 1950s. "The orchestras then played more contemporary music than now, and a pioneer like Daniel Ruyneman was already bringing composers to our country before the Second World War, including Stravinsky, Messiaen and Bartók. So Reinbert was not the first to pave the way for new music; he stood on the shoulders of others. An important forerunner was also Elie Poslavsky, who brought an awful lot of premieres in the Netherlands. But although I gave him a separate paragraph, hardly any journalist picked up on it. In my radio programme, I pay a lot of attention to these forgotten pioneers."

More myths? "To name but a few: Reinbert is said to have discovered Satie, Ives, Kurtág, Vivier, Ustvolskaya and many others. I show that all these composers were already performed here in the country. Reinbert's strength though is that he then put them firmly on the map with his unconditional commitment."

Also barely picked up is the pioneering role of Tilburg students in the revolutionary 1960s. They occupied the buildings of their college and conservatory even before the Amsterdamers and successfully forced more participation. Derks: "The famous Nutcracker action, in which Reinbert cum suis disrupted a concert of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, was grafted onto a similar action in Tilburg. That one is mentioned in other books at most in a passing sentence. I tracked down and interviewed the students involved."

'Man and melody' becomes 'Man or melody'

Derks emphatically places De Leeuw in the context of his time: "I see him as someone who was able to excel in part thanks to others." To this end, she drew on contemporary sources, including the magazine Mens en melodie, founded in 1946. "That has the reputation in modern music circles of exuding a terrible sprout smell, but from the outset it wrote with an unbiased view on contemporary music. For example, it devoted a major article to the then completely unknown Charles Ives as early as the early 1950s. It also minutely followed Reinbert's first steps on the concert stage. By the way, the subtitle of my book is taken from this magazine: when Reinbert once wanted to quote from Man and Melody, he mistakenly wrote Man or Melody."

Despite such comments, the book contains much praise towards the subject. Derks highlights his qualities as an incisive administrator, passionate educator, charismatic media personality and, of course, as a conductor. Every so often, composers declare that their work only comes to life once De Leeuw is on the podium. "His great achievement is that he is more than 100 per cent committed to music. As impatient as he is with musicians, he is so understanding of notoriously difficult composers like Ligeti and Kurtág. In this way, he gets the most out of every score."

Art Pope

But since 'nobody is waiting for a hagiography', Derks also noted dissenting voices. Thus, under the heading 'Art Pope', we read how he calls chief editors to complain about a critical review. Some say he even demanded the dismissal of reviewers during such phone calls, but Derks was unable to find any evidence for this.

A recurring theme is the position of power that De Leeuw built up over the years. The rebel of yore eventually found himself in an 'old boys network', Derks writes. She quotes percussionist and director Renee Jonker: "For three decades, no job was granted without him being partly behind it." Soprano Anne Haenen adds: "Reinbert was very powerful and if he didn't like you, you could shake it off as a composer." Cellist Anner Bijlsma: "If you were not well-liked by Reinbert, you got no more performances and no more subsidy."

Ironically, the same thing happened to Derks. Publisher De Bezige Bij was very impressed by her manuscript, but immediately dropped her when Reinbert expressed his displeasure. Thanks to Leporello Publishers Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody now in shops for over a year anyway. Sometimes a culture pope does not get everything done.

FOOTNOTE: Thea Derks: Reinbert de Leeuw, man or melody. Leporello Publishers 2014.