Largest donation

in the past

ten years

This story begins in 1900, the year Elly Lentz was born. She was one of six children in the Lentz family, three of whom went on to become 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 plays 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, that did not happen. 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, turned out to be an artistically gifted boy and a great aesthete. His mother taught him to play the piano, which he enjoyed doing, but only as a solitary activity. He was too headstrong to play with others. In high school, he took ballet lessons, and later, during his studies, he was very active in Amsterdam’s student theater scene and regularly performed with people such as Annet Nieuwenhuyzen, Marion Gobeau, Elise Hoomans, Peter Lohr, Hans van den Bergh, and Kick Stockhuyzen. He also paints, and later in life, inspired by his wife, he takes up pottery. His refined taste is reflected in the decor and interior of his home, which is of museum quality.

Brother Floris

His brother Floris was born thirteen years later. Due to the large age difference between the two brothers, an intense friendship only developed after their childhood. Like Willem, Floris also received piano lessons from his mother, but that was not exactly his great passion. He does not consider lessons from his own mother to be lessons, but rather upbringing. That is not an inspiring thought for him. He prefers the cello, or “that big violin,” as he calls it. Uncle Piet comes at just the right time. When young Floris goes to stay with Uncle Piet in Amsterdam, he is allowed to try playing one of his instruments. It’s love at first sight. He fiddles endlessly on the half-size cello. He prefers the cello to the piano because it most closely resembles 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 come along that lead Floris down a different path. At the family home in Eindhoven, where Elly’s conservatory classmate Eduard van Beinum occasionally stays, his mother Elly finds this hard to accept. But Floris is unyielding. First, it is sports that captivate Floris, later biology (discovering new animals in the Amazon region appeals to him), but a biology degree soon falls through due to severe color blindness. Finally, he chooses to study law. In the 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.

NMF ‘avant la lettre’

Years later. Willem is now a psychiatrist and still plays the piano, now on his Yamaha grand piano, at home in Wageningen. Floris is a lawyer and, in 1973, is seconded by his firm to a London office to advise the British on the consequences of the UK’s accession to the EEC. One of his colleagues 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 received this instrument on loan from the foundation. Floris saw and heard firsthand what an instrument fund can mean for a musician. When his uncle Piet passed away in 1978, it turned out that he had run a sort of NMF “avant la lettre.” Piet’s estate included no fewer than 27 cellos, most of which had been loaned to friends, former students, and musicians.

Legacy

Willem and Floris had developed a close friendship, and in the early 1990s, the topic of “legacy” came up. Neither brother has children, and Willem asks Floris for advice on what to do with his estate. Floris has an answer for that, because through his experiences in London and the handling of his uncle’s cello collection, Floris had conceived a plan to establish a foundation after his death that could 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 holds the usufruct of his estate, nothing happens for the time being with the foundation, which was newly established after Willem’s death. Floris becomes the foundation’s chairman, and Rob de Ruwe, Willem’s pension and tax advisor, serves as secretary/treasurer.

Around the turn of the century, Floris first hears of the NMF’s existence. A short newspaper article in the NRC brings the Fund to his attention. In the years that followed, the idea gradually took shape to have the NMF 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 NMF. The two parties quickly found they were on the same page.

Late 2016: the foundation’s final payment to the NMF has now been made. A total of over €800,000 has been transferred. With that money, a violin by Gennaro Gagliano (Naples, 1755), a 19th-century English bass, and a Cuypers cello (The Hague, 1771) were purchased. A bass and a cello are still on the wish list. Willem’s Yamaha grand piano has also been transferred to the Fund. The 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 how he wanted it. The instruments have been placed in the “Willem Vogelaar Collection” within the NMF. Willem, for whom art was so important in life, lives on in the instruments to which his name remains linked.