Music of the Netherlands Within the Orbit of British Interests of the Early 20th Century

Abstract

The present work analyzes an article of British journalist and musical critic Herbert Antcliffe (1875–1964) “The Renaissance of Dutch Music” published in 1925. The interest in the cultural life of the Netherlands contemporary to him, a country bordering with Germany, which was hostile to the British, was an expression of the cultural polity of Britain. The development of the musical culture of the Netherlands of the late 19th and early 20th century turned out to be at the center of the critic’s attention. The cited period coincided with the movement of the “New English Musical Renaissance.” Antcliffe indicates the themes which are important to him as a critic, as well as to the ascent of the sense of national identity, premises of the emergence of a new Renaissance of Dutch music, and the advancement of its leaders, the most important events and phenomena in the culture of the country of his interest (foundation of the Wagner Society, the bloom of Dutch national literature, activation of concert life, etc.). Antcliffe characterizes a number of peculiarities of Dutch music, crucial, in his opinion, which reflected the ideal foundation of the New Renaissance in musical culture of “the land of tulips.” In historical perspective the examined article by Antcliffe is viewed not as a local event of his biography, but a manifestation of the tendency of English musical historiography in its juxtaposition to German musical historiography. Antcliffe’s work attracted attention to itself in the Netherlands by its attempt at studying the musical life of the country at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Keywords: Herbert Antcliffe, sense of national identity, the Dutch musical culture, the Renaissance of Dutch music, leaders of the Renaissance of Dutch Music, Alphonse Dipenbrock.