Daniël van Goens

Daniël François van Goens (3 September 1858 – Paris, 10 May 1904) was a French cellist and composer of Dutch descent.

He was the son of preacher François Corneille Jean van Goens (born in The Hague) and Angela Margaretha Charbon (born in Amsterdam). They would have about ten children, with three passing away from tuberculosis. He married pianist Germaine Polack, who was twenty years younger than him. She remarried Charles Lambert after his death and they had daughter Marie-Anne Lambert, the late mezzo-soprano Deva Dassy.

He moved to France in his youth; his parents settled because of the climate in Montpellier, Van Goens was already there on the concert stage. The family later moved to Lausanne and in 1879 returned to Paris. Only one of his brothers remained in France, the late architect Jean Henri van Goens.

In Paris Van Goens took cello lessons from Leon Jacquard and composition from Albert Lavignac at the local conservatory. He left his law studies for music. In July 1883 he took a Premier Prix. He came to the Netherlands only rarely afterwards, but gave a concert in Leiden and Groningen (1890). In France, however, he was a celebrated musician. He had poor health, was sick in the last years of his life and had to occasionally divert to the clean air in Switzerland. He had to cancel more and more concerts (performing with his wife) and lost the ability to play the cello. He continued to compose.

He also wrote some forty works, including an Adagio, works for cello and orchestra (All 'Ungaresse) and piano pieces. The chamber music pieces were designated as salon music.

In the period between 1896 and 1908 five works by Van Goens landed on the lecterns of the Royal Concertgebouw: