Christmas Pastorale

Samuel de Lange Jr. (22 February 1840 – 7 July 1911) was a Dutch composer, music conservatory director, organist, pianist, conductor and music teacher. His father, Samuel de Lange Sr., and his brother Daniel, one year his junior, were also well-known musicians.

He was born in Rotterdam, the son of Johanna Molijn and Samuel de Lange Sr., a music teacher and organist in Rotterdam. In the year of Samuel Jr.'s birth, his father established a piano company with Jan and George Rijken, "Rijken & de Lange", a company that still operates in Rotterdam.

Among other teachers, Samuel Jr. studied organ with Alexander Winterberger, a pupil of Liszt, and piano with Karol Mikuli, a pupil of Chopin. He took music composition lessons with Johannes Verhulst and Berthold Damcke.

He spent his unusually productive life in many cities and countries. When he was just a teenager, he toured Eastern Europe as a pianist with his brother Daniël and Adrien-François Servais, both cellists. From the age of 20 to 23 he taught piano at the music conservatory of Lemberg. After that he returned to Rotterdam, but he soon went abroad again. He lived and worked subsequently in Basel, Paris, Cologne and The Hague to finally settle in Stuttgart, where he became director of the music conservatory.

De Lange befriended many fellow composers, including Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch and Max Reger, and dedicated compositions to Friedrich Grützmacher, Hugo Becker, Charles-Marie Widor and Johannes Brahms.

De Lange introduced reforms in the education of music in Cologne, Basel, and Stuttgart and was, with his father, instrumental in the founding of De Nederlandse Bachvereniging. In 1871, he played the first performance in the Netherlands of Brahms' 1st piano concerto.

He as an important composer for the organ, writing 8 large-scale sonatas.

Samuel de Lange Jr. died in his residence town of Stuttgart at the age of 70.

See FIRST COMMENT for musical notes.

The score and photos are attached below.