This outspoken and most original composer was born in the southern Netherlands, in Helmond on February 8, 1888 as Matthijs Van der Meulen. He was scheduled by his family for the priesthood, but a brief introduction to music made him realize at an early age that his true vocation would be found in composition. He used his small allowance to buy music paper, and continued his normal schooling; then, at the age of 19, he took off for Amsterdam to begin a life in music.
He was able to find work addressing envelopes for the Dutch Composers Publication Toonkunst and a short while later began writing articles on music for a Catholic daily called De Tijd; in 1910 he reviewed a performance of Marsyas by the important Dutch composer Alphons Dieponbrock which came to the elder composer's attention and began a lifelong friendship between the two. This not only enhanced Vermeulen's musical education, since scores by Wagner, Schoenberg and others were not available to him, but it resulted in his becoming editor of the important Dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer and, a few years later, the arts editor of the Amsterdam daily, De Telegraaf.
It was here that a sort of difficulty began that hounded him for much of his life. His criticism brought him problems, suchas the irate husband of a prominent singer he had reviewed less-than-favorable who came looking for Vermeulen with a loaded pistol. But worse than this was his attack on the hugely Germanophile conductor, Willem Mengelberg, then conductor of the Concertgebouw who ruled the orchestra and its board with an iron hand. He was definitely unfavorable toward French music, barely tolerated Dutch music, such that all that was ever performed was Brahms, Wagner, Strauss and Mahler. This was during the World War I, and Vermeulen spoke out vehemently against the German slaghter of the Dutch-speaking peoples as well as Mengelberg's storm-trooper conducting style: "Whether it is necessary to march about on the podium, to keep pace as if using an exercise machine, whether it is necessary to drum out the din of Mahler with one's fists, this will always remain an open question."
Vermeulen didn't seem to make any connection between himself as a critic and as a composer, and was surprised when he took his first symphonies to Mengelberg and the conductor heaped scorn upon them, sneering as he fabricated insults in the grand German manner. At the end of the assault Mengelberg told Vermeulen to "take some lessons from Mr. Dopper!" Dopper was a mediocre Dutch composer who had become Mengelberg's admirer and worshiper and thus got performances when more important Dutch composers (such as Diepenbrock) would go unplayed. (Vermeulen happily noted years later in the '60s that barely a note of Dopper's output was still performed.) Mengelberg put the word out through his acolytes that he had turned down Vermeulen's symphonies in order to keep him from making a fool of himself, and that now Vermeulen was launching a campaign of revenge against him. Stung by his pettiness, Vermeulen was impelled toward what was to be a seminal event in his musical life: at a concert conducted by Mengelberg of a symphony by Dopper, in the moment of silence between the final chord and the applause, Vermeulen rose to his feet and shouted "Long Live Sousa!" He and his wife were removed from the hall by two policemen, and forbidden to enter it again. After a feckless period of attempting to break through the walls created by the rift with Mengelberg, Vermeulen and his family gave up and moved to France.
He made his way writing articles on music for various publication, but life was difficult, and his home country ignored his efforts, refusing even to publish him. It was much later in 1939 that the Society for the Performance of Dutch Music arranged a performance of his Third Symphony conducted by Eduard Van Beinum. The composer and his wife could not afford to attend the performance, and life continued to be painful throughout the war period; his wife grew ill and died in 1944, and a month later his son, a fighter in the French army of liberation, was killed. When liberation came, Vermeulen was living with his eldest child, a daughter; They had no electricity, no coal, no shoes. In a cupboard lay his newest symphony, the remarkable Fifth. A Dutch composer finally succeeded in contacting him and commissioned him to write a book. This turned out to be Principles of European Musi, one of the most original and interesting books ever to appear in the Netherlands. This began a turnaround in his life, and in 1946 he was able to return to his homeland.
Vermeulen died in Laren on July 26, 1967. His output was not immense: he wrote seven symphonies, four war songs for voice and orchestra, two sonatas for cello and piano, a sonate for violin and piano, one string trio, one string quartet, several songs and the music to Nijhoff's The Flying Dutchman. He left behind a number of books on music, including The Two Musics, Sounding Board, The Single Basic Note, The Mind's Adventure, Principles of European Music and That Miracle, Music. The Voice of Those Living was published posthumously in 1981.
All of his work is marked by a distinctive originality of thought and style; the orchestral songs were written in France with French texts and necessarily absorbed the influence of that culture. The symphonies, however, have a much more personal quality to them and remain the greatest of the composer's not inconsiderable achievements. Among these, the Fifth possesses a darkness and complexity born of a time of great personal loss and poverty during the bleakest days of World War II. Its strong, sinewy texture reaches moments of great musical difficulty in Vermeulen's polymelodic style, layering vast expanses of rich musical materials, and interposing sections of suspended, sustained quietude. It ends most mysteriously on an unexpected resolution which emerges fro a long stream-of-musical-consciousness passage.
Donemus lists a three-CD set of Vermeulen's chamber works, and a three-CD set of orchestral music which inclues all seven symphonies. Olympia lists CDs of the Third and Fourth Symphonies.
© Philip Krumm /TiVo