Julius Röntgen (arr.): Ouwe wijven (Old women), Op.51 No.8 @PSearPianist

Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

#8 from 'Oud-Hollandsche boerenliedjes' (Old Dutch Peasant Songs), Op.51 (1912)
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Phillip Sear plays a piece from a wonderful set of song arrangements by the German-Dutch composer, pianist, conductor, and educator Julius Röntgen (1855–1932).
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Born in Leipzig into a distinguished musical family—his father, Engelbert Röntgen, was a violinist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and his mother, Pauline Klengel, a pianist—Röntgen received his early musical training at home and from prominent figures such as Carl Reinecke. Röntgen was acquainted with many leading musicians of his time, including Liszt, Brahms, and Grieg, and his early compositions were influenced by the Leipzig school, particularly Brahms. In 1878, after a period of study and performance in Germany, he settled in Amsterdam, where he became a central figure in the city’s musical development, co-founding the Amsterdam Conservatory in 1884 and contributing to the establishment of the Concertgebouw.

Röntgen was a remarkably prolific composer, leaving an oeuvre of over 600 works that encompass symphonies, concertos, chamber music, songs, choral works, and operas. His music, while rooted in the Romantic tradition, also incorporated elements of Dutch and Scandinavian folk music and, in his later years, showed an openness to modernist influences, including bitonality. Röntgen collaborated with many notable musicians, such as Pablo Casals and Percy Grainger, and was active as a performer, organiser, and teacher throughout his career. After retiring from public life in 1924, he devoted himself to composition in Bilthoven, producing more than 200 works in his final years. (Perplexity AI, April 27th 2025).

Röntgen's Op.51 comprises 18 arrangements of songs taken from the set 'Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boerenlieties en Contredansen' (Old and New Dutch Peasant Songs and Contredances). This is a collection of 996 tunes in published in 13 booklets between 1700 and 1716. Alas, the tunes do not come with lyrics, so in designing thumbnails, I have to go with what the music seems to suggest! Röntgen arranged the tunes in a modern pianistic idiom and harmonic style, and with considerable ingenuity and craftsmanship.

Thumbnail image generated by Gemini (within Google Slides).
#dutchmusic #peasantlife
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Played by Phillip Sear
psear.co.uk (Email: piano4@psear.33mail.com
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Julius Röntgen (arr.): Ouwe wijven (Old women), Op.51 No.8

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Fritz Renger: Ländlicher Tanz (Rustic Dance), Op.34 No.3

S. Claude Ridley: Evening Flowers (Graceful Sketch)

$Harvey Löhr: Läuschen und Flöhchen, Op.23 No.8 #8 from Grimm Fairy Tales (Silhouettes), Op.23 (1904). Phillip Sear plays a piece from a set of 25 by the English composer of German descent (Richard) Harvey Löhr (1856–1927). Born in Leicester, Löhr was the youngest son of the German-born organist and conductor George Augustus Löhr (1821–1897), who had settled in England and became a significant figure in the musical life of the East Midlands. The family background provided a distinctly German orientation to Harvey Löhrs early musical formation. He received his advanced training at the Royal Academy of Music, studying under William Henry Holmes, Ebenezer Prout, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. He twice won the prestigious Charles Lucas Medal, in 1877 and 1878, attesting to early distinction as a student composer. He subsequently held the post of organist at St Jamess Church, Marylebone, a position that sustained his connection to Londons musical life throughout his professional career. Löhr died in Hastings, and his manuscripts are preserved at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Löhrs piano music occupies a modest but characteristic corner of the late-Victorian keyboard repertoire, oriented towards the lyric miniature and the genre piece rather than the large-scale sonata. A Shakespeare Cycle, Op.19 (1898), a set of twelve pieces published by Schott & Co., represents his most ambitious contribution to the genre, drawing on literary imagery in a manner consistent with the characteristic piece tradition of the period. Other collections include Garden Idylls, Op.25 (1910), an album of twelve lyric pieces, and When We Were Children, Op.26 (1913), six character pieces also issued by Schott, suggesting a secondary market in pedagogical and domestic salon repertoire. Lighter pieces such as Ariel (1889) and Scenes from Fairyland, Op.21 (1901) reinforce an imaginative, illustrative approach to keyboard writing. The piano music forms only a fraction of Löhrs considerable catalogue, which includes five symphonies, two piano concertos, two string quartets, a piano quintet, a piano quartet (Op.15), and a piano trio (Op.22), alongside the operas A Border Raid (1883) and Kenilworth (1906). His choral output embraces the oratorio The Queen of Sheba, Op.20 (1900) and several anthems and part-songs, complemented by a large body of solo song. Though Löhr attracted little sustained critical attention in the twentieth century, his enduring legacy is institutional: a scholarship bearing his name was established at the Royal Academy of Music for British-born composers between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, a fund that has supported subsequent generations of student composers, among them Craig Armstrong.” (Perplexity AI, 21 June 2026). The piece is given a main English title of The Ladybird and the Fly, but the German subtitle Läuschen und Flöhchen known in English as “Little Louse and Little Flea” or “The Louse and the Flea” seems to be what the piece is about! “It is one of the shortest and most absurdist tales in the entire Grimm collection, belonging to the folklore type ATU 2022, “An Animal Mourns the Death of a Spouse”. A louse and a flea are brewing ale together when the louse falls into the brewing vat and scalds herself to death; the flea begins to weep and wail, and from that moment a chain reaction of increasingly ridiculous mourning spreads through a succession of characters — a little door starts creaking, a broom begins to sweep furiously, a cart starts running, a dung heap starts burning, a tree begins to shake its leaves, a spring starts to gush, and a little girl trips and breaks her jug — each one catching the lament from the previous and joining in the general lamentation without quite knowing why.” (Perplexity AI, 25 June 2026). Thumbnail image—showing the strange events listed by the Grimms—created with Picsart ( https://tinyl.co/4WqE ). #britishmusic #brothersgrimm #louse #flea Played by Phillip Sear http://www.psear.co.uk (Email: piano4@psear.33mail.com WhatsApp: http://wa.me/441444483794 ) TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pianogems ****See all my latest videos here: https://tinyurl.com/phillip210 ****$

A. Varlamov (arr.Charles Surrey): A Russian Barcarolle

Josef Löw: Garten-Ständchen (Garden-Serenade), Op.321

Charles D. Blake: Silvery Echoes (Reverie), Op.31

Guido von Samson-Himmelstjerna: Mein Liebling, Du! (My darling child), Op.11 No.2

Hermann Necke: Nachtfahrt auf dem Königssee (Barcarolle), Op.241

Ernest Gillet: La belle polonaise (Mazurka)