- Henk Badings
Henk Badings (
Bandung , Java,January 17 ,1907 -Maarheeze ,June 26 ,1987 ) was a Dutch composer.Born in
Bandung , Java as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in theDutch East Indies army, Badings became an orphan at an early age. Having returned to the Netherlands, his family tried to dissuade him from studying music, and he enrolled at theDelft Polytechnical Institute (later the Technical University). He worked as a mining engineer andpalaeontologist atDelft until 1937, after which he dedicated his life entirely to music. Though largely self-taught, he did receive some advice fromWillem Pijper , the doyen of Dutch composers at the time, but their musical views differed widely and after Pijper had attempted to discourage Badings from continuing as a composer, Badings broke off contact.In 1930 Badings had his initial big musical success when his first cello concerto (he eventually wrote a second) was performed at the
Concertgebouw inAmsterdam . Champions of his work included such eminent conductors asEduard van Beinum andWillem Mengelberg . He held numerous teaching positions; e.g., at theMusikhochschule Stuttgart and the University of Utrecht. Accused after theSecond World War of collaboration with the Nazi occupation forces, he was briefly banned from professional musical activity, but by 1947 he had been reinstated.Badings used unusual musical scales and harmonies (e.g., the
octatonic scale ); he also used the harmonic series scale from the eighth to the fifteenth overtone. A prolific artist, he had produced over a thousand pieces at the time of his death.Recently, interest in Badings' music has grown; the German label CPO have committed themselves to recording Badings' entire orchestral oeuvre, and a Badings Festival has been held in
Rotterdam in October of 2007.Further reading
* [http://www2.rnw.nl/mu/en/behind/biographies/henkbadings Radio Netherlands Music's account of Badings's career]
*nl icon [http://www.badings.nl A site dedicated to Henk Badings]
* [http://www.donemus.nl/componist.php?zknm=BADINGS%2C+HENK&lang=EN Donemus biography]
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