de Jong, Marinus

Preface

de Jong, Marinus – Proverbia Bruegeliana, op. 121, Flemish humorous song play for mixed choir, soli and orchestra (Vocal score with Flemish text / New print)

For more information about the piece read the preface to the full score:

(1959)

Marinus de Jong was born in Oosterhout, The Netherlands, but he would spend most of his life in Flanders. At fifteen, he was admitted to the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Antwerp, where, just three years later, he won first prize for fugue (with Lodewijk Mortelmans) and piano (with Emile Bosquet). In the meantime, he played the viola in different orchestras in Antwerp. He worked so hard that he suffered from exhaustion. When the First World War broke out, he returned to the neutral Netherlands, looking for peace and quiet in the Benedictine abbey of Oosterhout. There he trained as an organist and studied Gregorian, which would become one of his main sources of inspiration. In 1915 he published his opus 1, a simple two-part Missa Ave Maria. After the Armistice, he returned to Antwerp, where he won the composing competition of Albert De Vleeshouwer in 1919 at the Conservatoire, with the organ piece Prelude en tripelfuga, op. 2 (1917). After the war, he integrated completely in the Belgian music scene. He married the Flemish pianist Johanna Corthals and in 1926 he became a Belgian citizen.

​Initially, he mostly manifested himself as a piano virtuoso. In the early 1920s, he toured in America and Germany, but eventually he dedicated himself more and more to composing and teaching. In 1926, he succeeded Mortelmans as a teacher of counterpoint and fugue at the Lemmensinstituut in Mechelen, a position he would hold until 1963. At the Antwerp Conservatoire, he became a piano teacher in 1932 and in 1948 he also began teaching counterpoint and fugue. He wrote two didactic works: the six-part Theoretische en praktische harmonieleer (Theoretical and practical harmony) and the five-part Het contrapunt (The counterpoint), which remained unpublished.

​However, above all, de Jong was still a composer. He left behind a large and varied oeuvre, which is characterized by the use of old Gregorian modes and folk songs, and a particular interest in counterpoint. He loved displaying his technical skills in pieces such as the de Prelude and quadruple fugue for organ in dodecaphonic style, op. 99 (1954). With this piece, he wanted to demonstrate that he was able to compose in every style, even though he kept drawing from tradition and avoided modernisms. …

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