Chapter II: Amand Vanderhagen
Amand Jean François Joseph Vanderhagen was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1753. He started his musical training at the tender age of six as a singer in the choir of the local cathedral, where his father worked as an organist.1 At the age of ten he was sent to Brussels to study wind instruments with his uncle, A. Vanderhagen, who served as the first oboist of the orchestra of Prince Charles of Lorraine.2 There, he also started learning composition with court composer Pieter van Malder.3
Vanderhagen arrived in Paris sometime during 1775. Although some scholars question Vanderhagen’s immigration date and believe he moved to Paris nearly ten years later, there is enough supporting evidence that revokes these assumptions. For example, the publication details for his “Suite des Amusements Militaires” for wind sextet, which state: “M. de la Chevardière; Paris; Castaud; Lyon, c. 1776,”4 and membership records of the Masonic organization Grand Orient de France have Amand Vanderhagen listed since 1775.5 Soon after his move to Paris, Vanderhagen joined the Gardes Françoise du Roi.6 By 1785, he became the first clarinetist of the Gardes Françoise du Roi and was praised for his original compositions and marches for the band, as well as his arrangements of popular operatic arias and other popular tunes for smaller wind ensembles – a standard practice at the time.7 Most of these arrangements, dated from 1776 to 1817, were based on themes by composers who were well established in the French musical milieu like Gossec, Étienne Méhul, André Grérty, Nicolas Dezéde, Nicolas Isouard, Nicolas Dalayrac, and Antonio Sacchini. Other composers who had their works arranged by Vanderhagen are Domenico Cimarosa, Giovanni Paisiello, Joseph Haydn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A close examination of the sort of ensembles Vanderhagen wrote for, shows that the traditional wind sextet, with pairs of clarinets, bassoons, and horns, was his ensemble of choice up until the end of the century. Later, however, he started experimenting with larger ensembles, adding flutes or optional parts for serpent, trumpet, and trombone. He seemed to have reached his arranging prime during the first decade of the 19th century, while serving in the Imperial Guard, for which he composed full military band arrangements, including parts for pairs of piccolos, F clarinets, C/Bb clarinets, horns, bassoons, trumpets, trombones, serpents, and percussion.8
The year 1785 marks an important milestone in Vanderhagen’s career. It was around the same time that Vanderhagen got promoted to the position of first clarinetist of the Gardes Françoise du Roi that he wrote his Méthode Nouvelle et Raisonnée pour la Clarinette. Although not the first to target the classical clarinet, but certainly the most thorough instructor for the instrument up to date.
In 1788 the French Guard Band grew from sixteen to over forty musicians and Vanderhagen became the band’s director and chief composer under the patronage of Jules Hercule Mériadec de Rohan, Prince of Guéméné.9 He lost this position soon after, as the band dissolved when the prince fled to Belgium to save himself from persecution with the first events of the French Revolution.10 Soon after, Vanderhagen was among the group of forty-four musicians who were invited by Bernard Sarrette to form the Musique de la Garde Nationale, and in 1792 the Ecole gratuite de Musique de la Gard Nationale Parisienne; This school is believed to be one of the institutions that merged and formed the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique.11
In 1798 Vanderhagen became a director in the institution, and soon after he was promoted again to the consul. He advanced once again during his military career and peaked when he won the title Sous-chef de musique des Grenadiers de la Garde Impériale - assistant director of the Imperial Grenadier Guards. During this period, he also composed methods for the oboe and the flute Méthode Nouvelle et Raisonée pour le Hautbois (1792), Nouvelle Méthode de Flute (1798), and revised his clarinet method, now titled Nouvelle Méthode de Clarinette (1799).
Interestingly, he published his first clarinet method prior to becoming a teacher in this municipal institution (1785), while most of his other pedagogical works were composed during the last decade of the century.
Vanderhagen appears to have been on the list of musicians of the orchestra of the Théâtre Français since 1805, a position that would soon save him from unemployment.12 After the Prussian Campaign, in 1807, Napoleon decorated Vanderhagen with the Légion d'Honneur for his service during the war. After the fall of The French Empire in 1815, Vanderhagen lost his prestigious military position. He then became the first clarinetist of the Théâtre Français. In 1818 he moved to second chair and held this position until his death in 1822.
Looking at his nearly five-decade-long career, and impressive accomplishments, one might wonder why Vanderhagen barely managed to leave his mark and could have possibly been forgotten if not for his comprehensive treatises for the clarinet, oboe, and flute. Joan Michelle Blazich suggests that his political views had something to do with that. Vanderhagen served as an officer of the Masonic Grand Orient de France between 1782-1788. This organization was highly associated with monarchists and French royalty sympathizers - an unpopular political stand to hold in the wake of the French Revolution. Blazich also stated in her commentary about Vanderhagen that his membership in pro-monarchist organizations throughout his professional life may have hurt his career to a certain extent, as he was never fully accepted in the circle of distinguished Parisian musicians of the Conservatoire de Paris.13 Kailan R. Rubinoff supports this, claiming that “…the Conservatoire emphasized anti-monarchism: it planned to produce musicians to serve all the people of the French Republic, rather than glorifying the king and entertaining the nobility.”14