Coenraad V. Bos


Coenraad Valentijn Bos was a Dutch pianist, most notably as an accompanist to singers of lieder. His peers such as Gerald Moore considered him the doyen of accompanists in his day.

Biography

He was born in Leiden in 1875. He studied under Julius Röntgen and at the Berlin High School for Music. He decided early to become an accompanist, a field of which he made a special study.
On 9 November 1896, in the presence of the composer, and still a month shy of his 21st birthday, he accompanied the Dutch baritone Anton Sistermans at the premiere of Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge in Vienna.
In 1899 he founded The Dutch Trio together with his Berlin-based countrymen Jacques van Lier and Joseph Maurits van Veen. The pianotrio was active for over ten years and acquired fame throughout Europe.
For many years he worked with singers such as Raimund von zur-Mühlen, Elena Gerhardt, Julia Culp, Frieda Hempel, Alexander Kipnis, Gervase Elwes, Ludwig Wüllner and Helen Traubel.
He appeared with the 13-year-old Yehudi Menuhin in Berlin on 23 April 1929, and they exchanged inscribed photographs of themselves in commemoration of the event.
He recorded lieder of Brahms, Reger, Schubert, Schumann and Wolf with Elena Gerhardt. He figures prominently in the Hugo Wolf Society's Complete Edition 1931–38, accompanying Gerhardt, Herbert Janssen, Gerhard Hüsch, Alexandra Trianti and Elisabeth Rethberg.
He died in Chappaqua, New York, United States on 5 August 1955, aged 79.

Legacy

He preserved his musical memories in "The Well-tempered Accompanist".