lit a candle 4h agoI don't even know how I first found his recording of that Zutphen organ, I think it was one of those late night internet rabbit holes, I was actually looking up something about acoustics and resonance, how sound moves through old stone, which ties into this thing I was reading about cave formations of all things, and then somehow I ended up listening to him play for almost an hour straight while I was repotting tomato seedlings. I don't know the names of the pieces. I just know it felt like weather. Anyway I read today that he died at 89 in the same town where he played that same organ for over thirty years, which, I don't know, there's something in that, staying in one place long enough to become part of its sound. I'm not religious at all but something about it made me go quiet for a minute out there in the garden.
Their story
Egbert Jan Matter, known throughout Dutch church music as Bert Matter, was born on 29 April 1937 in Baambrugge (then Abcoude-Baambrugge) into a Reformed pastor's household. His father, Hendrik Margienus Matter, and mother, Grietje Frederika Wiersma, raised him in a culture where Genevan psalms, organ galleries, and Sunday services were…
Egbert Jan Matter, known throughout Dutch church music as Bert Matter, was born on 29 April 1937 in Baambrugge (then Abcoude-Baambrugge) into a Reformed pastor's household. His father, Hendrik Margienus Matter, and mother, Grietje Frederika Wiersma, raised him in a culture where Genevan psalms, organ galleries, and Sunday services were daily language. That upbringing never left him. Decades later he still spoke of Psalm 121 as indispensable to both his personal life and his work as a church musician.
He began serious organ study in 1953 with Piet van den Kerkhoff, whose Dupré-rooted legato technique and large Walcker instrument in Rotterdam opened the French Romantic repertoire while leaving Sweelinck and Bach harder to reach. At the Rotterdams Conservatorium Matter continued with van den Kerkhoff for organ and with Cor Kee for improvisation, the skill that would later define his reputation. While still a student he held posts in Rotterdam-Charlois, Hoogeveen, Almen, and at De Wijngaard in Zutphen, and in Hoogeveen he helped organise the local Jeugd en Muziek branch.
Teaching arrived early. From 1960 to 1967 he taught organ at the Deventer music school, then from 1964 also in Zutphen, and in 1967 he joined the Utrechts Conservatorium as a theory lecturer. The decisive twin appointments came in 1969: principal organ teacher at the Arnhem Conservatory, and organist of the historic Bader/Timpe organ in Zutphen's Walburgiskerk, succeeding the legendary Cornelis (Cor) Bute. From 1987 to 1992 he also held a principal post at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Generations of Dutch organists, among them Els Dijkerman, Toon Hagen, Joost Langeveld, Johan Luimes, Henk Luijmes, Klaas Stok, Paul Tegels and Pieter van Dijk, passed through his studio.
At the Walburgiskerk Matter stayed for thirty-three years, until spring 2002. He was the driving force behind the restoration of the Bader/Timpe organ, founding the Stichting Henrick Baderorgel in 1986; the Reil workshop completed the work in 1996, after which the instrument was widely ranked among the finest in the Netherlands. He recorded extensively on it both before and after the restoration, and his Bach readings became especially prized. As a recitalist and improviser he appeared across the Netherlands, Austria, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States, and he sat on juries at national and international competitions. From 1967 to 1970 he was editor-in-chief of Het Orgel, the journal of the Royal Dutch Organists' Association, and he remained active in that society and in the Internationale Orgeldagen Rijnstreek.
Composition ran beside performance. Matter published around forty works, mostly psalm and chorale settings for organ, often marrying traditional forms to the slow-shifting repetition of minimal music after Steve Reich. His Fantaisie sur "Une jeune fillette" / Fantasie sopra "Von Gott will ich nicht lassen" (1988) became an international repertoire staple. Students marked his 2002 farewell with the disc Bert Matter Organ Works; for his eightieth birthday in 2017 came Bert Matter - Improvisaties, drawn from radio archives. With Peter Molenaar he co-wrote the practical workbook In goede harmonie (2009) on Genevan-psalm harmonisations. He also contributed Psalm 1 "Gelukkig is de mens" to the 2013 ecumenical Liedboek, wrote the Missa St. Walburga (2014), and scored Gys Zevenbergen's documentary De staart van de leeuw (2001).
Dutch honours followed the work. In 1997 he was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. In 2012 he received the Sweelinck Prize for lifetime contribution to Dutch organ culture, cited for forming young players, for improvisation, and for composition. Colleagues remembered him as a warm, sharp, occasionally stubborn teacher who prized humour as much as craft, and who said teaching was the work he loved most because it let him share the beauty of music and of an instrument with other people.
Matter married Maria Anne (Marianne) de Leeuw (1935-2019). Their daughters are the writer Maritgen Matter and the designer Jurianne Matter. He died peacefully in Zutphen on 26 August 2026, aged 89. The family memorial site at bertmatter.nl invites remembrances; Dutch organists marked his passing with in-memoriam improvisations and broadcasts, keeping alive the psalm-rooted voice he spent a lifetime shaping.
Biography adapted from nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Matter; de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Matter; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Matter; Orgelnieuws.nl (27 Aug 2026); Reformatorisch Dagblad (27 Aug 2026); bertmatter.nl.
In their own words
“Minimal? People fall off their pews, they find it so beautiful, although some walk out. Minimal music has to be able to flow and shift very slowly in a good acoustic.”
Reformatorisch Dagblad interview, 2002 (English rendering of Dutch original)
“I grew to love this instrument. It has everything in it: poetry, dignity and brilliance. I always said: when I turn 65, I stop. But I want to keep a key, because I simply have to play a psalm improvisation and a bit of Bach here every day.”
On the Walburgiskerk Bader/Timpe organ, Reformatorisch Dagblad, 2002
“Teaching is what I loved most. What draws me is dealing with people and letting them taste the beauty of music and of an instrument. Stimulating them by holding out a carrot and seeing how far they come along.”
Reformatorisch Dagblad interview, 2002
“Many young people no longer have a bond with the religious element in the music, while the compositions we play are rooted in a centuries-old Christian culture. You have to try to make the underlying thoughts of that heritage your own. You hear that back in the interpretation.”
Reformatorisch Dagblad interview, 2002
“They are not separate worlds. The things must be done with love. Then a kind of strength comes over you, and the work succeeds.”
On faith and church musicianship, Reformatorisch Dagblad, 2002
