Henri Zagwijn


Henri Zagwijn was a Dutch composer.
Born in Nieuwer-Amstel, Zagwijn never received a formal musical education, instead being almost completely self-taught in composition. He was attracted to the style of the Impressionists and began to compose in a manner reflective of trends then current in France. He gained an appointment to teach at the Rotterdam School of Music in 1916; two years later, with Sem Dresden, he founded the Society of Modern Composers in the Netherlands. Later in his career he settled in The Hague, and from 1931 taught at the Rotterdam Conservatory. An anthroposophic disciple of Rudolf Steiner, he published De muziek in het licht der anthroposophie in 1935; in 1940 he published a life of Claude Debussy. Zagwijn died in The Hague. His compositional output consists largely of chamber music.