Rudi Martinus van Dijk

 

Susan Tomes

Wednesday January 21, 2004

The Guardian

 

Though Dutch by origin, Rudi Martinus van Dijk, who has died aged 71, saw himself as a mid-Atlantic composer, shuttling across the ocean for much of his life. Composing opportunities for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) led to the Four Epigrams For Orchestra (1961), and Rudi enjoyed particular success in Canada with the orchestral song-cycle The Shadowmaker (1978). Recognition followed in Europe, especially in Britain.

 

Born in Culemborg, south of Utrecht, Rudi studied composition at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, with Leon Orthel and Hendrik Andriessen. In 1953, he and his wife Jeanne Koning moved to Canada, where their sons Felix and Walter (now both actors) were born.

 

Studies followed with the American composer Roy Harris, and in Paris with Max Deutsch, a pupil of Schoenberg. Rudi's favourite composer from the Second Viennese school was Berg, whom he placed alongside Ravel, Stravinsky and Rachmaninov as a musical hero.

 

From 1966, Rudi became a teacher himself at the Royal Conservatory, Toronto, and from 1972 held posts at the University of Indiana, Fort Wayne, and at the Berklee College of Music, Boston. In 1985, he returned to Europe; his Irish Symphony was commissioned by Radio Telefís Éireann for Dublin's year as European City of Culture in 1991.

 

After visiting Walter in the East Sussex village of Peasmarsh, in 1999 Rudi and Jeanne decided to settle there, too. Through Walter's friendship with the violinist Anthony Marwood, Rudi came into contact with performers keen to commission new works. With the pianist Aleksandr Madzar, in 1998 Marwood broadcast Rudi's Violin Sonata. Other notable works include his Piano Trio (premiered by the Florestan Trio in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, in 2001), a String Sextet (for the Raphael Ensemble, 1998), a String Quartet (premiered by the Dante Quartet in March 2003), Songs Of The Tao Te Ching (premiered by the tenor Ian Partridge and pianist Kyoko Hashimoto in that same concert), and The Triple Hymn (premiered in London by the dance company Angika in 2001).

 

The Shadowmaker, setting texts by the Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen, had also been commissioned by a friend, the baritone Victor Braun, initially so that he could perform it with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. On the strength of that work, in 2002 the German dramaturge Heinrich Riemenschneider contacted Rudi, convinced that he was the right composer for his text about Karlrobert Kreiten, a talented pianist executed in 1943, at the age of 27, for criticising the Nazis. A major work for baritone, choir and orchestra was thus commissioned by the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra for performance last September.

 

Working on his Kreitens Passion became an all-consuming task for Rudi, partly because he identified with the young musician, who stuck to his vision of truth in a hostile society. Rudi worked with his faithful pipe in hand - seven days a week, eight hours a day for several months - until early last year, when he was diagnosed with cancer.

 

Told that he might not live to attend the premiere, he revised his diet, gave up smoking, and, for a while, appeared to be responding to chemotherapy. He was present in Düsseldorf in jubilant form for the three, sold-out performances, which earned standing ovations. But asked him how he felt, he answered, "I have died with Kreiten." Shortly after returning home, he had a stroke.

 

As the pianist of the Florestan Trio, I often met Rudi at our concerts. He would stop me after a performance of Schumann, Schubert or Ravel, grab me by the arm and exclaim with wonderment, "That piece. Isn't that just incredible?" But he was just as capable of merriment as of passion, and his shout of laughter would identify him wherever he was in the room.

 

The grandeur of nature touched him deeply, and, in his last years, he revelled in the delicate beauty of East Sussex. He is survived by his wife and sons.

 

· Rudi Martinus van Dijk, composer, born March 27 1932; died November 29 2003