Hellendaal the Elder
| Pieter Hellendaal | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 April 1721 |
| Died | 19 April 1799 (aged 78) |
Pieter Hellendaal (1 April 1721 – 19 April 1799) was an Anglo-Dutch composer, organist and violinist. He was sometimes distinguished with the suffix "The Elder", after the maturity of his musician son, Pieter Hellendaal the Younger.
At age 30, he migrated to England where he lived for the last 48 of his 78 years. He was one of the most famous composers of Dutch origin in the 18th century.
Hellendaal was born in Rotterdam on 1 April 1721, the son of Neeltje Lacroix and Johannes Hellendaal. Johannes earned a living to support his family as a candle-maker while seeking paid gigs, and teaching and working with amateur musicians. As a father, Johannes provided his son Pieter with an intense musical education, including organ and violin. In addition to his highly creative compositions and prodigious craft as a performer, Pieter in maturity maintained himself by compositions and self-publications that respected and supported amateur musicians.
In 1731, the Hellendaal family moved to Utrecht where Pieter - still juvenile - became organist for the St. Nicholas church, (Nicolaïkerk , a highly visible and prestigious position: Popularly known as the "Santa Claus" Church, St. Nicholas was the second oldest parish church in the Netherlands and had been recognized for many centuries as a leader for organ music. In 1120 it was already well known as the first Dutch church to use a portable organ. The main organ in the 1730s had been built by Peter Gerritsz during the years 1477-1479, and is the first large Dutch organ and was famous as one of the first and best preserved anywhere from the Middle Ages. Under Johannes' supervision, son Pieter at age ten played the Gerritsz organ. From January 1732 (when Pieter was about twelve) until 1737 he was appointed an organist. In that year, when Pieter was 15, the Hellendaal family moved, this time to Amsterdam.
Soon after their arrival, Pieter's outstanding talent as a violinist came to the attention of the Amsterdam city Secretary, Mattheus Lestevenon, who arranged for him (barely sixteen) to study in Italy where he stayed for six years (1737–1743). For two years of this journey (1740–1742) he studied in Padua at the Scuola delle nazioni with Giuseppe Tartini, the most famous violinist of that time.
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