Henk Badings

Born in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, Hendrik Herman Badings[1] became an orphan at 7 years old. Having returned to the Netherlands in 1915, Badings took up violin and piano, however was dissuaded by his guardians from creating a career in music. Badings enrolled at the Delft Polytechnical Institute (later the Technical University), graduating in 1931. He worked as a mining engineer and palaeontologist at Delft until 1937, after which he dedicated his life entirely to music.[note 1] Though largely self-taught, he became a pupil of Willem Pijper, the doyen of Dutch composers at the time, but their musical views differed widely and after Pijper had attempted to discourage Badings from continuing as a composer, Badings broke off contact.

In 1930 Badings had his initial big musical success when his first cello concerto (he eventually wrote a second) was performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Champions of his work included such eminent conductors as Eduard van Beinum and Willem Mengelberg. He held numerous teaching positions; e.g., at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and the University of Utrecht. Accused after the Second World War of collaboration with the Nazi occupation forces,in April 5, 1942 he was briefly cancelled from professional musical activity, but by June 3, 1947 he had been reinstated.

Badings used unusual musical scales and harmonies (e.g., the octatonic scale); he also used the harmonic series scale from the eighth to the fifteenth overtone.[2] An exceptionally prolific artist, he had produced over a thousand pieces at the time of his death in Maarheeze in 1987.

Compositions by Badings include fifteen numbered symphonies, at least four string quartets,[3] several concertos, other orchestral works including a "Symphonietta : speelmuziek voor klein symphonie-orkest",[4] other chamber music works, piano works, and incidental music.

In the 21st century, interest in Badings' music has grown. The German label CPO has committed itself to recording Badings' entire orchestral œuvre, and a Badings Festival was held in Rotterdam during October 2007.

• Texts used in vocal music by Henk Badings at The LiederNet Archive
• (in Dutch) A site dedicated to Henk Badings Archived 2007-10-17 at the Wayback Machine
• Donemus biography (in Dutch)
• Klemme, Paul T. (1993). Henk Badings, 1907-87 : catalog of works. Detroit studies in music bibliography, no. 71. Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press. OCLC 28666144. ISBN 0-89990-065-8 ; ISBN 978-0899900650.