Biography
Having completed his studies under Hol, Lange, and Herzgenberg, Wagenaar accepted a teaching role at the music school in Utrecht. He later served as organist and director of the cathedral. The Hague Conservatory named him director in 1919, a position he kept until 1937. Widely admired as a composer, organist, teacher, and choral conductor, Wagenaar trained numerous skilled musicians, among them Voormolen and Orthel. Drawing on Brahms, Berlioz, and Strauss, he merged those approaches into a distinctive personal idiom. Light in tone, his compositions often mocked the emotional excess typical of Romantic music.