18?? – 1961
So far there is hardly any precise biographical information about Edouard van Cleeff, which is strange considering that he had a career with performances and a performance of his opera Pancho in Nice. We know that van Cleeff studied Harmony with Emile Schwartz, then composition by Charles-Marie Widor and Alfred Casella. Van Cleeff’s mother was British and of Jewish descent. His father was a member of the celebrated Dutch Van Cleef(f) family of Jewellers. He married Renée Frida Léontine Simian in 1925 and lived in Nice until the detention of Jews in 1943. He was sent first to Frontstalag 122 internment camp near Compiègne before being deported to Dachau. He placed all of his manuscripts into boxes, which he gave to a friend for safe-keeping. After the liberation of the camps, van Cleeff was too traumatised to continue composing. Van Cleeff composed art songs (mélodies), various pieces for piano, a sonata for cello and the short opera Pancho, with a libretto by André Rastier, premiered in Nice on 24 March 1931. It was successful enough to have been broadcast, a recording of which has been kept and digitised. It was subsequently performed in various opera houses across France.
The estate eventually landed with the pianist Joy Schreier, who contacted the Exilarte Center for banned music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna after the intercession of the soprano Renée Fleming.
