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ten years

Elly Lentz

This story begins in 1900, the year Elly Lentz was born. She was one of six children in the Lentz family, three of whom became professional musicians. Piet, her younger brother, played the cello and viola da gamba and, together with Szymon Goldberg, founded the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, where he remained principal cellist until his retirement. Elly herself played the piano. After graduating from the Amsterdam Conservatory in 1922, she was invited to compete for the Prix d’Excellence in 1923, with none other than the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Willem Mengelberg. She performed (among other pieces) Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto and passed with honors. As a prize, she was to study in Paris with Alfred Cortot. However, because her father put a stop to it, the plan never came to fruition. Elly then traveled to the Dutch East Indies for a concert tour, where she met her future husband, Willem (“Wim”) Th. Vogelaar, who was working there for Shell at the time. Four children were born from that marriage, including the sons Willem (1931) and Floris (1944). She eventually gave up her concert career and devoted herself to giving piano lessons to “advanced” students.

Willem Vogelaar

The eldest, Willem, turns out to be an artistically gifted boy and a great connoisseur of beauty. His mother teaches him to play the piano, which he enjoys doing, though he prefers to play alone. He is too headstrong to play with others. In high school, he takes ballet lessons, and later, during his college years, he is very active in Amsterdam’s student theater scene, regularly performing with people such as Annet Nieuwenhuyzen, Marion Gobeau, Elise Hoomans, Peter Lohr, Hans van den Bergh, and Kick Stockhuyzen. He also painted, and later in life, inspired by his wife, he took up pottery. His refined taste is evident in the decor and interior design of his home, which is of museum-quality.

Brother Floris

His brother Floris was born thirteen years later. Because of the large age gap between the two brothers, a close friendship didn’t develop until after their childhood. Like Willem, Floris also took piano lessons from his mother, but that wasn’t exactly his passion. He didn’t consider lessons from his own mother to be lessons at all, but rather part of his upbringing. That wasn’t an inspiring thought for him. He preferred the cello, or “that big violin,” as he called it. Uncle Piet came along at just the right time. When young Floris goes to stay with Uncle Piet in Amsterdam, he’s allowed to try playing one of Uncle Piet’s instruments. It’s love at first sight. He fiddles endlessly on the half-sized cello. He prefers the cello to the piano because it sounds most like the human voice. And also because he finds those two staves on the piano rather tricky...

Although he seems destined for the conservatory, other interests arise that lead Floris down a different path. At his parents’ home in Eindhoven—where Elly’s conservatory classmate Eduard van Beinum occasionally stays—his mother, Elly, finds this difficult to accept. But Floris is unyielding. First, it’s sports that captivate him; later, biology (discovering new animals in the Amazon region appeals to him), but his biology studies soon come to a halt due to severe color blindness. Finally, he decides to study law. On Van Breestraat in Amsterdam, where he lives during his studies starting in 1962, he plays the cello endlessly. After all, Uncle Piet lives nearby and gives him lessons. In three years, he learns what takes others eight years to master. Floris joins the Amsterdam Student Orchestra and plays in a number of chamber music ensembles.

The Musical Instrument Fund “avant la lettre”

Years later. Willem is now a psychiatrist and still plays the piano, this time on his Yamaha grand piano, at home in Wageningen. Floris is a lawyer and, in 1973, was seconded by his firm to a London law firm to advise the British on the implications of the UK’s accession to the EEC. One of his colleagues at the firm turns out to be a board member of a foundation that manages the cello played by Jacqueline du Pré. Antonio Stradivari built this “Davidoff” in 1712. Yo-Yo Ma later receives this instrument on loan from the foundation. Floris saw and heard firsthand what an instrument fund could mean for a musician. When his uncle Piet passed away in 1978, it turned out that Piet had been running a kind of “Music Instrument Fund” ahead of its time. Piet’s estate included no fewer than 27 cellos, the majority of which were on loan to friends, former students, and musicians.

Estate

Willem and Floris developed a close friendship, and in the early 1990s, the topic of “inheritance” came up. Neither brother had children, and Willem asked Floris for advice on what to do with his estate. Floris had an answer for that, because through his experiences in London and the handling of his uncle’s cello collection, he had conceived a plan to establish a foundation after his death that would acquire instruments to lend to young, talented musicians. Willem thinks this is an excellent idea and decides to do the same. Not long after, in 1998, he dies unexpectedly; he is only 67 years old. Because his widow held the usufruct of his estate, nothing happened for the time being with the foundation, which had been newly established after Willem’s death. Floris becomes the foundation’s chairman, and Rob de Ruwe, Willem’s retirement and tax advisor, serves as secretary/treasurer.

Around the turn of the century, Floris first heard about the existence of the Musical Instrument Fund. A short newspaper article in the NRC brought the Fund to his attention. In the years that followed, the idea gradually took shape to have the Fund handle the purchase and management of instruments rather than doing so themselves. Floris and Rob de Ruwe realized that selection, purchase, management, and related tasks require expertise, time, and money. Enlisting professional help therefore seemed far preferable to trying to reinvent the wheel themselves. When Willem’s widow passed away in late 2014, the usufruct ended, the foundation’s funds were released, and Floris contacted the Musical Instrument Fund. It soon becomes clear that the two parties are on the same page.

Late 2016: The foundation has now made its final payment to the Musical Instrument Fund. A total of over €800,000 has been transferred. With that money, a violin by Gennaro Gagliano (Naples, 1755), a 19th-century English double bass, and a Cuypers cello (The Hague, 1771) were purchased. A double bass and a cello are still on the wish list. Willem’s Yamaha grand piano has also been transferred to the Fund. The double bass, cello, and grand piano found players in no time. Bassist Uxía Martínez Botana, cellist Nitzan Laster, violinist Michael Foyle, and pianist Anne Veinberg are the lucky ones.

Willem Vogelaar Collection

The story ends on December 1, 2016, when the foundation was dissolved. Floris looks back on the past period with satisfaction. His brother’s wish has been fulfilled: his estate and his grand piano will likely help six talented musicians. That is exactly how he wanted it. The instruments have been added to the “Willem Vogelaar Collection” within the Musical Instrument Fund. Willem, for whom art was so important in life, lives on in the instruments that will forever bear his name.