J.H.Kapteijn

[KGill]

Does anyone know what his dates are, or even what his initials stand for? I'm guessing Johan, but I'm not going to put anything up (from free-sheetmusic.org) until I'm absolutely positive of the name. He was the organist for St. Jacob's in someplace called Gravenhage, and probably has been dead for a few centuries. The only piece I could figure out that he wrote was Pastorella for a two-staff organ. Sorry for all the hopelessly obscure composers I've been pursuing...

[KGill]

I guess no one's ever heard of him. Maybe I should retypeset the score (it's only 2 pages) and list him with a first name of 'J.H.' (already done with W.C. Handy), and release my file under cc-by to get around the issue of publisher? Or just forget it?

[audunsj]

Organists is a pain in the butt as they are so nomerous and always makes compose preludes and postludes which might be "only" arrangements of other composers scores, and since nobody heard of him (or her) one might need to find out which church he worked in and ask them when he lived... Been there... Lots of brilliant music though!

[Carolus]

It's amazing how difficult it can be to find info on some of the more obscure composers - even relatively recent ones. It's even worse for those who were mainly arrangers and editors. Léon Roques, who provided the piano reductions for well over 100 opera vocal scores issued in Paris between ca.1860 - ca.1920, took me several years to track down. Another obscure one - whose dates are still to be found - is Henri (or Hubert) Mouton, who produced hundreds of arrangements and orchestrations for Durand and other Paris publishers in the same era.

[KGill]

Several years? That's incredible dedication...I only spent about 45 minutes (pathetic, but my only general resources are the subscriptionless Internet, one solitary volume of Grove, and Slonimsky's Lectionary of Music, which are far too broad for this kind of thing).
Amazing how someone can turn out arrangement after arrangement for so many decades, and no one even bothers to write down a bit of information about him. Quite infuriating...
Well, I guess this guy isn't very important, and I'll just forget it.

[steltz]

Took me a while to twig on this one -- Gravenhage isn't just "some place called Gravenhage" -- it's been renamed -- The Hague!!!

I did a quick Google search for St. Jacobs in the Hague, and I can't find any email addresses for anyone there, because it seems it's used mainly for meetings these days, and there are no tours, possibly no church services, hence no real admin one can contact.

However, there is a music Conservatory in The Hague. Somebody there must know a lot about the local history of musicians in the Hague, so J.H. Kapteijn may well be known to someone there. A quick search of the Conservatory website doesn't reveal any organ teachers, although I find it odd they wouldn't have one, but the Head of the Keyboard division is David Kuyken, and here's his email address:

d.kuyken@admin.koncon.nl <d.kuyken@admin.koncon.nl>

Mr. Gill, could I suggest that you just take a few more minutes, contact this guy, and see if he can point you in the direction of (with email addresses for) organists in The Hague who are familiar with that city's history, in particular it's organists?

[KGill]

Wow, thank you for the information! To think that I figured Gravenhage was some little town in the middle of nowhere...
I have emailed Prof. Kuyken about this and hope to get a reply soon (or at all).
The only problem with this is that I think Kapteijn is a rather common name (or at least not uncommon)...

[KGill]

Oh, and it now turns out that someone else is the head now...Susanne van Els, s.vanels@staff.koncon.nl. Not sure why they apparently didn't update their site...
So I'll have to email her instead.

[KGill]

And it now additionally turns out that they take ridiculously long holidays- she says she'll be back by September.

[steltz]

Always more than one way to skin a cat (don't know where that saying came from . . . .)

Try adg@aarnouddegroen.com for Aarnoud de Groen, who is organist at the Bethlehemkerk in The Hague. He studied at the Conservatory in The Hague, and may be able to help you, or give you other names for local history buffs.

(I just googled "organist Hague", and a couple of names came up.)

Another useful one might be the Haags Orgel Kontakt (Hague Organ Contact). You can type your email address and a message. Someone there might know someone, etc. etc. . . . .

The link is http://translate.google.co.za/translate ... ZA288ZA289

or just Google "Haags Orgel Kontakt" and then click on <Contact opnemen> to get to the form.

Also, Rotterdam Conservatory has 5 organists, at least one of whom studied at the Hague Conservatory. None of the 5 have email addresses on the Conservatory website (probably all part time), but the email address for the conservatory itself is:

classicalmusic@codarts.nl

but being academic, they probably have the same holiday the Hague Conservatory has . . .

[steltz]

Oh, and I forgot possibly the Netherlands most famous organist, Ton Koopman:

dagmar@tonkoopman.nl <dagmar@tonkoopman.nl>

[Peter]

Hi, being a Flemish I speak Dutch. If you need my help give me a message.

[KGill]

Thank you guys so much for your assistance! I will definitely send those emails...tomorrow (it's a quarter after eleven where I am). And Peter, additionally thank you for your generous offer, looks like I will need it...I could translate into Spanish, but that doesn't really help here.

[KAPTEIJN]

Dear KGill,

This very morning I accidentaly came across the Pastorella (by J.H. Kapteijn) on Youtube. A 2009 entry. Johannes Henricus Kapteijn happens to be my grandfather. Born on 31 october 1878 in The Hague and died in The Hague 8 augustus 1963. At that time I was 4 years old so I don't have any recollections of him. As his father, who was also an organplayer in Holland city of Haarlem, Johannes Henricus (John Henry) was playing the organ by profession as well. He did so at the Roman Catholic church of St. Jacobus: http://www.stjacobus.nl. At the same time he was teacher/lecturar at the Koninklijk (Royal) Conservatorium in The Hague. As far as I now the Pastorella is the only piece he wrote.
The Hague is the English name for Den Haag en Den Haag is een popular name for 's-Gravenhage. So The Hague / 's-Gravenhage en Den Haag is all the same city in The Netherlands. It's where our government and Houses of Parliament are seated.
Futhermore all the ambassies are located in The Hague. So it is quite a nice place with an international status. It also contains the International Court of Justice and the Peace Palace. The Hague is a typical city filled with civil servants and a lot of expats. That was already the case in J.H. Kapteijn's days.

I don't know whether the above is helping you at this moment, being almost six years after your first question

Regards,

[cypressdome]

KAPTEIJN,

Thanks for the information because we actually had Kapteyn's category page on IMSLP populated with incorrect information. There was also a Dutch Protestant clergyman named Johannes Kapteyn. His biography can be found at Protestant.nu. He also died on August 8 but at Dachau in 1942. We had his photograph and vital information in the category which has now been corrected.

Thanks again!