Daniël de Lange Daniël de Lange

Daniël de Lange (July 11, 1841 - January 31, 1918) was a Dutch composer, choir conductor, pianist, organist, organizer, music educator and music critic. He was a son of the organist and composer Samuel de Lange (1811-1884). He studied the cello with A.F. Servais at the Brussels Conservatory, where he was also in Berthold Damcke's composition class. From 1858 he toured eastern Europe with his brother, teaching the cello at the conservatory in Lemberg (L'viv), 1860–62. He returned to Rotterdam in 1862 and taught at the Toonkunst music school. He lived in Paris as an organist and choir conductor from 1864 to 1870, meeting Berlioz, Bizet, Lalo and Massenet, then settled in Amsterdam as a teacher and orchestra and choir conductor. In 1873 he established a music school at Zaandam and from 1875 to 1911 directed the Leiden section of Toonkunst; he sat on the society's general committee (1876–1908) and served on the board of the Vereeniging voor Noord Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis (1881–1913). From 1884 he taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory (of which he was a co-founder), succeeding Frans Coenen as director (1895–1913). In 1914 he became director of the music department of the Isis Conservatory in Point Loma, California.

De Lange's chief importance lies in his championship of early Renaissance polyphony. In 1881 he founded in Amsterdam a choir of ten soloists with which he toured the Netherlands. In 1885 he gave a concert at the International Inventions Exhibition in London, and in 1892 he was invited to Vienna where he directed another a cappella choir, this time with 18 soloists, at the Internationale Ausstellung für Musik- und Theaterwesen. A successful tour of western Europe followed. He also promoted contemporary and Asian music. From 1875 to 1913 he wrote music criticism for the newspaper Het nieuws van den dag. His editions include the doubtful St Matthew Passion ascribed to Obrecht (UVNM, xviii, 1894). In his compositions de Lange combined progressive tendencies with echoes of early polyphonic techniques.