From Wibi Soerjadi to de Jussens, from Nino Gvetadze to Nicolas van Poucke: well-known Dutch pianists who were not taught by Jan Wijn at some point are rare. Although he hardly performed since 1976, no pianist in the Netherlands after the war had such an influence as he. From 1962 Wijn trained numerous players at the conservatories of Tilburg and Amsterdam. He only retired two years ago.
He passed away on Tuesday in Soest after a short illness, his family reported to the ANP news agency. Wine is 88 years old.
The fact that Wijn became such an important pedagogue was partly due to an unfortunate deviation. In the early 1970s he was at his peak. Wijn, who had studied with Alicia de Larrocha, among others, has been a soloist with all the major orchestras in the Netherlands. But in 1972 he got a problem with his right hand. When he wanted to strike an octave, he was shocked to hear a seventh: one key too few. His grip tightened. In 1976 the complaints became too bad and he stopped performing for the time being.
In the late 1970s, the ailment was given a name: focal dystonia, a condition in which the brain does not control the fingers properly. Wine was told it wouldn’t work out. Yet he remained hopeful: he sought the solution in expensive psychological sessions at the religious society Scientology. In the meantime, his teaching practice grew, and with the successes of Wibi Soerjadi and Ronald Brautigam, so did his reputation.
Pianist Thomas Beijer is in a sense also a product of Wijn’s school: not only did he study with Wijn for seven years, his previous teachers were also taught by him. ‘Jan was very good at creating an environment in which everyone developed themselves’, says Beijer. This happened in group lessons in which pianists had to listen to each other. ‘Jan acted as moderator in this. We all felt like we were doing something very important.”
Wijn was ‘allergic to insincerity, noble kitsch and tinsel’, says Beijer. ‘It was all about the clear line in the piano playing. He valued the noble in Brahms, the unsentimental in Ravel. Teaching someone to play the piano is one thing, but in a lesson he could also ask the question what emotion is: joy and sadness at the same time. Why do people cry over something they like? That had to have something to do with Paradise Lost. I still think about that every day.’
Another star pupil was Hannes Minnaar. “The most important thing he taught me was to have real physical pleasure in playing the piano,” he says. Like Beijer (and many others), Minnaar continued to visit his teacher long after graduating. ‘Jan was a beautiful personality; warm, involved and dedicated. When, in my freshman year at the conservatory, I wondered if I was even suitable for it, it felt very natural to call him about it on a Tuesday evening. What I also found very special was that I was never able to catch him showing any grudges about his own career.’
“Once he called me to say that he had heard something nice on the radio, and was delighted to find out I was the pianist at the announcement. It would also be crazy if he had hated it. I don’t think he realized how big his influence is on my game.’