Jan-Piet Knijff
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Jan-Piet has written on music professionally since 1988, when he became music critic for Haarlems Dagblad, the world's oldest extant newspaper.

 

 

In over twelve years of work for the paper, JP wrote hundreds of concert reviews, background articles, interviews, and other articles.  He interviewed writer Norman Lebrecht (author of The Maestro Myth and When the Music Stops), conductor Ed Spanjaard, and many other prominent musicians.  He wrote feature articles about the Dutch craze around Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and about organist-composer Albert de Klerk (1917-1998).  He also contributed a series of portraits of small historical organs around Haarlem and a diary of his concert tour in Japan as accompanist of the Haarlem Cathedral Choir (“Onder de rijzende zon,” Under the Rising Sun).

 

 

JP has also contributed articles to scholarly journals such as Het Orgel, The Tracker, Bach Notes (formerly The American Bach Society Newsletter), The Diapason, and Gregoriusblad.  He is New York correspondent of Pianowereld, the Netherlands’ foremost piano magazine. 

 

 

JP has served as editor of Het Clavecimbel, the journal of the Nederlands Clavecimbel Genootschap, contributing a variety of interviews with players like Janny van Wering and builders like Joel Katzman and Titus Crijnen. 

 

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Peter Williams: The Life of Bach,” review, Bach Notes 3 (Spring 2005): 7–9.

 

“Het Tannenberg-orgel in Winston-Salem (Amerika),” Het Orgel 101 (2005), no.3:

10–15.

 

“Freiburger Orgelbuch,” review, Het Orgel 101 (2005), no.3: 38–39.

 

“Janny van Wering (1909–2005),” The Diapason 96 (2005), no.5: 10.

 

“Baders,” “Bätz,” “Covelens, van,” “Friederichs,” “Hess, Hendrik Hermanus,”

“Hinsz, Albert Antoni,” “Knipscheer,” “Moreau, Jacob François,” “Periodicals” (with

Hans Fidom), “Schnitger, Franz Caspar,” “Smits,” “Ypma,” in The Organ

Encyclopedia, ed. Douglas Bush (New York: Routledge, 2006).

  

“A Simple Unity: Interview with D.A. Flentrop (1910–2003), The Diapason 95 (2004), no.3, 20–23 [first published as “Een eenvoudige eenheid,” Het Orgel 95 (1999), no.4: 25–29].

“Ignace Bossuyt, Het Weihnachts-Oratorium (BWV 248) van Johann Sebastian Bach,” review, The American Bach Society Newsletter, Fall 2003: 3.

“Organ Building in Germany 1880–1918,” review, The Tracker 47 (2003), no.4: 27–29.

“‘Muziek zonder humor is niets’: maestro Sixten Ehrling (84),” Pianowereld 19 (2003), no.4: 10–13.

“Leonhardt op zestien toeren: Bert Matter na 33 jaar Zutphen,” Het Orgel 99 (2003), no.1: 8–9.

“Sweelinck Keyboard Music: A Book and Nine CDs,” review, The Tracker 47 (2003), no.1: 17–19.

“Bach Organs on Disk: Naumburg, Leipzig, Arnstadt––and More,” review, The Tracker 46 (2002), no.4: 20–22.

“Historical baroque organs of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg,” review, The Tracker 46 (2002), no.2: 23–25.

“Albert Clement, Der dritte Teil der Clavierübung von Johann Sebastian Bach,” review, The American Bach Society Newsletter, Fall 2001: 8–9.

“Moderne Amerikaanse orgelcultuur: een impressie,” Het Orgel 97 (2001), no.4: 40–47 (with Ronald Stolk).

“Bachbiograaf Christoph Wolff: ‘Bach heeft alles waar ik van hou in muziek en muziekwetenschap’,” Pianowereld 17 (2001), no.6: 26–28.

“‘Een orgel, daar kan je helemaal gek op zijn’: een gesprek met Gustav Leonhardt,” Het Orgel 96 (2000), no.5: 27–30.

“Max Regers pianomuziek: tijd voor herwaardering,” Pianowereld 15 (1999), no.8/9.

“Alle registers open,” eight portraits of historical organs around Haarlem. Haarlems Dagblad, 20 April–8 June 1999.

“Albert de Klerk: het beste van twee werelden,” Haarlems Dagblad, 19 April 1997.

“‘Ik heb het altijd als een luxe-vak beschouwd.’ Interview met Janny van Wering, ‘onze Nederlandsche Claveciniste’” Het Clavecimbel 2 (1995), no.2: 10–13.