Here Comes Treble: Farewell To A Great Man Of Music
...Their home was filled with music, even when it was silent. ‘Cello’s hung on the walls, there were musical ornaments dotted around every room, yellowed and well-used sheet-music was piled on cupboards and music stands and filled cupboards in Jaap’s study. The study was dominated with a large, upright piano, fitted with an organ’s foot-keyboard. In the hallway under the stairs two tiny pipe organs faced each other...
Isabel Bradley pays tribute to a great musician, Jaap Hillen, who died last month.
For more of Isabel's wonderful and moving words please click on Here Comes Treble in the menu on this page.
Jaap Hillen, known throughout Europe as a Bach specialist, was an organist and conductor of choirs, and a founder of various musical societies in Holland. He ran the Utrecht Students’ Choir for twenty-five years and was cantor at the University of Utrecht for twenty, as well as conducting many others. He was a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, and received many other honours in his long life.
It wasn’t, however, as a ‘great man of music’ that we met Jaap, it was as a friend and fellow-musician. Our friend, Alice, knew Jaap from their teenage years, when she accompanied one of his choirs during rehearsals. A few years ago, Alice, Leon and I enjoyed a musical tour of Europe together. A highlight was the time spent with Jaap and his wife, Femke.
Their home was filled with music, even when it was silent. ‘Cello’s hung on the walls, there were musical ornaments dotted around every room, yellowed and well-used sheet-music was piled on cupboards and music stands and filled cupboards in Jaap’s study. The study was dominated with a large, upright piano, fitted with an organ’s foot-keyboard. In the hallway under the stairs two tiny pipe organs faced each other. I’d never seen such small instruments, fully functional, beautifully maintained by Jaap, and frequently used during concert performances.
The ground floor had been made into one long room. At one end was a large picture window looking out on a tiny garden filled with yellow roses. In the space lit by that lovely window were a ‘Mozart’ or table-piano, a huge harpsichord, purpose-built to Jaap’s design and a lovely cabinet organ. The cabinet organ looked just like a large, Dutch cupboard, until one opened the doors and there were the pipes. The keyboard was in a drawer below the pipes.
In the centre section of the room was a large grand piano. The rear section was the dining-room and looked out on a bright, flower-filled garden.
Alice, Jaap and Femke planned a house concert for one of the evenings of our stay. By the time we arrived at the Hillens’ home, we’d been travelling for several weeks and urgently needed to regain our musical fluency. Alice and I spent four hours rehearsing together one afternoon. We were to play several works, including a transcription of a Dvorak sonata.
After supper that evening, I spent a further two hours in glorious rehearsal with Jaap, first at the harpsichord, then at the cabinet organ. Jaap was tall, proud and imposing, but his spoken English was hesitant, though he seemed to understand it well. I could understand his Dutch if I concentrated hard, but couldn’t speak a word. We communicated marvellously, mostly through music. Those two hours were an intense and very satisfying lesson for me on the art of playing baroque music, a magical experience.
The concert next evening was a great success, attended by Jaap’s students, family friends and many of Alice’s friends and family.
Jaap and Femke were wonderful hosts who welcomed us with great warmth. Femke showed us the lovely city of The Hague and they took us to the docks at Scheveningen where we ate salted herring.
We visited De Grote Kerk or the Great Church in Breda, also known as The Church of Our Lady. Jaap was the organist there from 1949 until his death on 27 June 2008, almost sixty years. He was the longest-serving organist at this Great Church, since its foundation in 1410. Jaap played his last service there on Ascension Day this year.
During the nineteen-sixties and –seventies, Jaap scoured Europe for parts to use in the restoration of the organ in this exquisite church. The organ itself began life in the sixteenth century, with only sixteen stops. Many of the pipes and other parts which Jaap found for this organ are themselves antiques. The organ is now a magnificent instrument, both in sound and appearance. It seems to hang thirty feet above the flag-stones, painted in blue and gold, its many silver pipes soaring to the high, arched ceiling. Cherubs and angels, scrolls and painted ribbons decorate it, and a narrow, steep spiral staircase, also in blue and gold, leads to the platform where the console is housed. This consists of a seat, four keyboards, a row of pedals, and knobs known as ‘stops’, which allow selection of the pipes and thus the sound required by the organist. The music that poured with power and majesty through the church when Jaap played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue left us breathless, the rich, low pedal-notes reverberating deeply in our chests.
With Jaap sitting at the organ console, high in the church, suspended between floor and painted-arch ceiling, he led our music-making to heights of beauty unimagined by me before. Music filled the vast and sunlit, empty spaces, the full sounds of the organ blended with the flute. It felt as if the great musicians of the ages were channelling their talents through us.
Learning to know Jaap Hillen was a delight. Working with him as a musician was an enormous honour. Everyone whose life he touched was enriched by his strength and gentleness, his knowledge and his great love of music. The world is richer and more beautiful because Jaap Hillen lived.
Jaap, wherever you are now, I wish you joy, peace and music in abundance.
Until next time…‘here comes Treble!’
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By Isabel Bradley
