Scores in a fruit crate

Eleonore Pameijer talks about how she discovered the scores of Hans Lachman: “One of the most projecting finds of recent years was stashed away in a garden shed. Hans Lachman’s son Michel kept his father’s scores safe for many years. In his small house in the Dutch town of Alphen aan de Rijn, the pile of papers was taking up precious space and Michel decided to move the manuscripts to the garden shed. That is where I found this treasure on 21st April 2008. An unforgettable image still vivid in my mind: a wooden fruit crate containing the complete oeuvre of Hans Lachman.

Being stored in the garden shed, the scores felt somewhat damp. On top of the pile of autographs there were some cardboard boxes with tape recordings of Lachman’s works. I decided to spend the whole day with the Lachman family to make an inventory of the crate’s contents and to describe all works.

What a treasure! I found an opera, six orchestral pieces, seven concertos, a Requiem, songs with orchestra, two ‘radiophonic cantatas’, a work for a large ensemble, sonatas for strings, sonatas for winds, eight chamber music scores for various instrumentations, varying from a trio to a sextet and finally nine string quartets. When studying the works I found that Lachman was very well trained in counterpoint. Bach was clearly an inspiration. Lachman wrote with great skill for various instruments and often used classical forms. His compositions are firmly rooted in tonality, with a great deal of chromaticism, which sometimes makes you think of Hindemith or Reger. It made me curious to know more about Hans Lachman’s life. His family gave me some biographical information and some photos.