Van Nieuwenhove, Ernest

Ernest Van Nieuwenhove
(pseudonym: Ernest d’Agrèves)

Deuxième suite pour quatre violoncelles (1936)
(Second suite for four cellos)

(Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, 31 March 1880 – Schaerbeek, 10 January 1968)

I Moderato
II Andante
III Mouvement de barcarolle
IV Allegretto

Ernest Van Nieuwenhove got his first music lessons from his father and later studied music theory and piano with Joost De Mol and piano with José Sevenants, who was himself a student of Arthur De Greef. Allegedly, he later also took private lessons with Paul Gilson. According to what the musicographer and poet Lambrecht Lambrechts wrote in the periodical Muziek-warande (1 March 1924) he didn’t have the financial resources to continue studying music at a conservatory. Therefore, Van Nieuwenhove is mostly an autodidact. He was nonetheless highly skilled, both as a composer and a performer. While he was still in secondary school, he composed various occasional pieces, often to texts written by his cousin, the famous playwright Herman Teirlinck. And thanks to his great talent for sight-reading, he was a much sought-after accompanist and chamber musician in the Brussels music scene.

He composed many Lieder, which stand out mostly for their rich piano parts. At that time, many Flemish composers used to write rather straight-forward, more popular songs. Lambrechts wrote the following about this: ‘His Lieder might be somewhat difficult for Flanders – Van Nieuwenhove is difficult in nearly everything he writes – but nowadays we are able to find pianists in this country who are willing to take on these arrangements. He uses many notes, loves flattering key changes, manages to find rich and provocative harmonies, seems to be intellectual rather than full of storms, full of burning emotions. Few composers understand the role of the keyboard in Lieder as well as he does.’

In 1909, his one-act opera Harte troef (Hearts are trumps), to a libretto by Herman Teirlinck, premiered in the Royal Flemish Opera. The piece was met with favourable reviews, but his later operas (Vrouwenveiling (Women auction), Merlin et Viviane and Aphrodite) were never performed. He also composed a few orchestra pieces, including the symphonic poems Voorjaarsweelde (Spring Wealth) and Venetia, of which the influences lie somewhere in between César Franck and impressionism. With the rise of the radio, he wrote a few pieces meant explicitly for the radio orchestra, and therefore for radio broadcast, like his Concerto in re kleine terts voor fluit met begeleiding van radio-orkest (Concerto in D minor with radio orchestra accompaniment) and Schaperszang voor hobo, met begeleiding van klavier (of radio-orkest) (Shepherd’s song for oboe, with keyboard accompaniment or radio orchestra).

Read full preface / Komplettes Vorwort lesen > HERE