Donald Macleod looks at Bosmans’s final years, including her fiery relationship with singer Noëmie Perugia.

Henriëtte Bosmans seemed destined for a life in music from the moment of her birth, in 1895. Her father was the principal solo cellist in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra and her mother a piano teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Bosmans developed a flourishing career and won international success with her Concert Piece for Violin and Orchestra. As a concert pianist she performed alongside conductors such as Ernest Ansermet and George Szell.

Bosmans didn’t follow her mother's Jewish faith. Nevertheless, her ancestry played a significant role in the events of her life. She lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, when tens of thousands of Amsterdam Jews were deported to concentration camps, including her fellow citizen, Anne Frank. This week, Donald Macleod is joined by Bosmans expert Dr Helen Metzelaar and also Dr Laurien Vastenhout from Amsterdam’s Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide.

Henriëtte Bosmans was greatly inspired observing the powerful connection between composer, Benjamin Britten and tenor, Peter Pears, and she sought out her own vocal muse. Her heart was captured by the singing of Noëmie Perugia and the two began to perform together. The relationship was far from harmonious, though, and there were frequent arguments between the two. Perugia refused to sing in Dutch, and often refused to sing songs Bosmans composed in other languages, too. For Bosmans’s part, she would deliberately set texts she knew would irritate Perugia. Their relationship only lasted a few years before Bosmans started to suffer from stomach pains. She died of stomach cancer in 1952.

Concertstuck for flute and chamber orchestra
Jacques Zoon, flute
Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra
Jac van Steen, conductor

La chanson du chiffonnier
Julia Bronkhorst, soprano
Maarten Hillenius, piano

Das macht den Menschen glücklich
Julia Bronkhorst, soprano
Maarten Hillenius, piano

Een lied voor Spanje
Julia Bronkhorst, soprano
Maarten Hillenius, piano

Violin Sonata, UK première
Ionel Manciu, violin
Dominic Degavino, piano

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for BBC Wales Show less