Freudiaans: ‘Sofia Goebaidoelina, een vrouwelijke componist’

Vandaag de vijfde herpublicatie van een van mijn columns over de veronachtzaming van vrouwelijke componisten. Hierin riep ik de violiste Liza Ferschtman op de componerende dames in haar Delft Chamber Music Festival niet te vergeten. en zowaar, ze had geluisterd!

Voor de eerste editie vroeg ze de Amerikaans Nederlandse Vanessa Lann een stuk te componerenen voor viool en piano. Dat werd Springs Eternal, geïnspireerd op de Frühlingsssonate van Beethoven. In 2014 schreeflijn opnieuw een stuk voor Ferschtman, Moonshadow Sunshadow voor twee violen.

En donderdag 23 maart presenteert Ferschtman in het Muziekgebouw aan het IJ een voor haar in haar muzikale vrienden gecomponeerd octet van Mathilde Mathilde Wantenaar. Anno 2017 lijken de vrouwen dan toch bezig aan een gestage opmars.

Componist m/v (4)

Verschenen in muziektijdschrift Luister, maart 2007

Weet u het nog, van dat water en die steen? Het duurt even, maar uiteindelijk wordt zelfs een rots door vallende druppels uitgehold. Daarom nu mijn vierde spetter op de gloeiende plaat van de veronachtzaming van vrouwelijke componisten. Want mijn gedram begint langzaam vruchten af te werpen.

Zo bracht het Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest onlangs een geheel aan composities van vrouwen gewijd concert en presenteerden de celliste Iris van Eck en de pianiste Ariëlle Vernède een cd met muziek van Henriëtte Bosmans, Louise Farrenc en Rebecca Clarke. Nu ben ik niet dol op gettovorming, maar de muziekwereld lijkt zich eindelijk bewust te worden van het bestaan van vrouwelijke toondichters.

Vaak komt dit soort initiatieven uit de koker van dames, maar ook heren beginnen zich te realiseren dat componeren niet uitsluitend een mannenzaak betreft. Dat besef vertoont soms ietwat Freudiaanse trekjes.

Zo meldde een Vlaamse dirigent in het tijdschrift van zijn orkest dat hij een stuk van Sofia Goebaidoelina had geprogrammeerd, ‘een vrouwelijke componist’. Dito de presentator op Radio 4, die een compositie aankondigde van Isabelle Mundry, ‘een vrouwelijke componist’. Ik hoor nooit ‘Ludwig van Beethoven, een mannelijke componist’ – de toevoeging verraadt hun ongeloof.

Maar, het zaadje is ontkiemd, dus ik tel mijn zegeningen. Daartoe behoren helaas niet de viooltijgers Isabelle van Keulen en Janine Jansen. Juist van de jongere generaties zou ik een toewijding aan de goede zaak verwachten, maar dat is tot nu toe ijdele hoop gebleken.

Noch op het afgelopen zomer door Van Keulen geprogrammeerde Delft Chamber Music Festival, noch tijdens het in december gehouden Kamermuziekfestival van Jansen in Vredenburg, klonk één noot van vrouwen. En dat in een tijd waarin velen, musici incluis, op hoge toon de islam beschuldigen van een vermeende discriminatie van vrouwen. Typisch geval van ‘de pot verwijt de ketel dat hij zwart ziet’.

Komende zomer programmeert Liza Ferschtman het Delftse evenement. Dus, kom op, Liza: doe er wat aan!!!

#AriëlleVernède #HenriëtteBosmans #LizaFerschtman #MathildeWantenaar #SofiaGoebaidoelina

Marion von Tilzer wint Vrouwencompositieprijs MCN

Amsterdam, 8 oktober 2012 Tijdens de druk bezochte Dag van de Klassieke Muziek in het Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ werden vanmiddag de prijswinnaars bekendgemaakt van de competitie voor vrouwelijke componisten. De dag werd voor de elfde keer georganiseerd door Muziekcentrum Nederland (MCN), dat per 1 januari ophoudt te bestaan. Dankzij een anoniem legaat, uitdrukkelijk bestemd voor vrouwelijke componisten, konden drie prijzen worden uitgereikt.

Marion von Tilzer won de eerste prijs met Rote Schuhe, bestaande uit € 10.000; twee aanmoedigingsprijzen van € 2.500 gingen naar Aspasia Nasopoulou (Lelia doura) en Mathilde Wantenaar (nog zonder titel).  De partituren zullen worden uitgegeven door Donemus, de uitgeverijtak van MCN. – De dames zullen dus haast moeten maken.

Juryvoorzitter Miranda van Drie stipte nog even zin en onzin aan van een speciaal op vrouwen gerichte compositieprijs. Opvallend was dat één van de aangeschreven conservatoriumdocenten had laten weten zijn studenten niet op de hoogte te zullen brengen van de competitie, omdat hij het idee erachter onzin vond. Dit ontlokte de zaal afkeurende reacties.

Terecht, want nog altijd krijgen vrouwelijke componisten aanzienlijk minder kansen dan hun mannelijke collega’s. De grote hoeveelheid inzendingen – 59 in totaal – bewijst dat er onder vrouwen wel degelijk behoefte bestaat zich onderling met elkaar te meten. Het is dan ook te hopen dat deze competitie wordt overgenomen door een andere organisatie, nu MCN ophoudt te bestaan. Misschien iets voor Women on Top?

Van Drie wees op de grote variatie van de ingezonden voorstellen en de enorme leeftijdsverschillen: de jongste inzender was 19, de oudste 72 jaar oud. De van oorsprong Oostenrijkse Von Tilzer won de eerste prijs met Rote Schuhe, voor de bijzondere bezetting van strijkkwartet, contrabas, fluit, hobo en Hardangerviool. Dit Noorse volksmuziekinstrument heeft sympathiserende snaren (snaren naast de hals die meeresoneren, maar niet afzonderlijk bespeeld worden) en wordt een duivels karakter toegedicht.

Von Tilzer baseerde haar stuk op een sprookje van Andersen over een meisje dat ondanks een onderdrukkende godsdienst haar dromen tracht te realiseren. Volgens het juryrapport weet zij dit gevecht ‘beeldend vorm te geven door de ontwikkeling van een strikt marsachtig thema naar een ritmische dans en vervolgens de uitmonding in een zwevende melodie’. Von Tilzer hoopt haar stuk in november af te hebben, waarna het in première zal worden gebracht door De Bezetting Speelt.

De in Griekenland geboren Apasia Nasopoulou kreeg een aanmoedigingsprijs voor haar blokfluitkwintet Lelia doura, waarin zij hedendaagse compositietechnieken en ongebruikelijke ritmes combineert met middeleeuwse teksten en gezangen. Zo maakt zij ‘een mooie verbinding met traditie en verleden’. Het juryrapport verwijst bovendien naar het grote aantal professionele en -amateurblokfluitisten in ons land, die binnenkort een nieuw stuk aan hun repertoire kunnen toevoegen.

Een tweede aanmoedigingsprijs ging naar de jongste deelnemer, Mathilde Wantenaar. Zij studeert aan het Conservatorium van Amsterdam en diende een idee in voor de originele bezetting van piano, bandoneon,  besklarinet, altviool, cello en contrabas. ‘Zelf relateert zij dit aan het leven zelf, dat zij ervaart “als een achtbaanrit vol emoties”. Uit het plan sprak een jeugdig enthousiasme, maar ook een doordachte en volwassen gedachtegang over haar compositie. De jury is benieuwd hoe zij de afwisselende en verrassende elementen in haar voorstel verder vorm gaat geven.’

Het zou mooi zijn als de drie composities op één concert in première werden gebracht, wellicht kan Vrouw& Muziek hierin een rol spelen.

Er waren tien genomineerden: Anke Brouwer; Rieteke Hölscher; Sylvia Maessen; Mayke Nas; Apasia Nasopoulou; Anna van Nieukerken; Sharon Stewart; Marion von Tilzer; Mathilde Wantenaar en Sinta Wullur.

De jury bestond uit Miranda van Drie, directeur van het NJO (voorzitter), Thea Derks, muziekpublicist; Olga de Kort, muziekpublicist; Eleonore Pameijer, fluitist, en Astrid in ’t Veld, programmeur van De Vrijdag van Vredenburg.

#AspasiaNasopoulou #MarionVonTilzer #MathildeWantenaar

Mathilde Wantenaar: Lush harmonies in new piece for Dutch Radio Choir

Mathilde Wantenaar

This season NTRZaterdagMatinee makes up for decades of neglecting female composers, featuring well-known names such as Kaija Saariaho and Unsuk Chin next to lesser-known composers such as Calliope Tsoupaki and Kate Whitley. On Saturday 23 March the Dutch Radio Choir will present both Gubaidulina’s Canticle of the Sun and Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken by Mathilde Wantenaar.

This piece for choir a cappella was commissioned by the renowned radio series in Concertgebouw Amsterdam. As always the concert will be aired live on Radio 4. Underneath you find the translation of my text for the programme booklet.

Mathilde Wantenaar (Amsterdam, 1993) has been steadfastly working on her development for years. In 2011 she attracted attention with her entry for the annual composition competition of the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble. Seven years later the wind players asked her for their project Bach & Sufi. “She sliced up the Hohe Messe, inclined her ears towards Persia, and arranged a musical treat that amply transcends good intentions”, opined de Volkskrant.

In 2014 she won the Alba Rosa Viëtor Composition Prize with Sprookjes 1, 2 & 3 for violin and piano, and a year later her Song of Songs for soprano, guitar and percussion won an award in the Princess Christina Composition Competition. She composed pieces for pianist Ralph van Raat, vocal ensemble Wishful Singing and soprano Johannette Zomer. In 2016 she presented the successful chamber opera p e r s o n a r for the Opera Forward Festival of Dutch National Opera. Her Octet for Strings, written for violinist Liza Ferschtman, represented the Netherlands in 2017 at the International Rostrum of Composers.

She studied composition with such diverse teachers as Willem Jeths and Wim Henderickx at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, graduating in 2016. Wantenaar does not limit herself to composing, however. During her studies she also took cello lessons and vocal training, and currently she is enrolled at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague to become a professional singer. She has a great affinity with the human voice and even her purely instrumental compositions are remarkably melodious.

Elusive atmosphere

No wonder her first commission for NTRZaterdagMatinee is a composition for the Dutch Radio Choir. For this a cappella piece she chose a poem by Herman Gorter, Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken (which roughly translates as These are the pale, pale weeks). This is not the first time she was inspired by Gorter’s poetry. In 2017 she made a setting of De stille weg (The silent road) for chorus, piano and violin, a commission from the Festival De Muze van Zuid.

Wantenaar was attracted by ‘the stillness, the stratification, the visual, the elusive and the transient’ in Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken. The poem evoked strong images in her: ‘In my mind’s eye I envisioned the poet sitting in a quiet room at a table next to the window. The sun is hidden behind an endless expansive cover of white clouds, it is as if the world has been drained of all colour, even though there is a lot of light.’

‘Outside there is life, but in the poet’s room everything sounds muted, it feels as if time is standing still and the sky has solidified. We sit under a bell jar, shimmering dust particles float in the air and in the meantime the world slowly passes us by. It is nice to be there, but at the same time also oppressive and lonely.’

Wantenaar translated this static, somewhat floating feeling into a 3/2 metre, which we often associate with older music. The text is sung largely homophonic and the tempo is low, time seems to stand still. Under the calm atmosphere, however a ‘mildly longing romantic undercurrent is simmering’, says the composer. Underneath this yet another layer is concealed, with a ‘darker feeling of constriction’. The play of light and dark finds its equivalent in a varied dynamic, the tranquillity is expressed in sonorous harmonies. A single dissonant chord echoes the subcutaneous tension that shimmers through the poem.

Concertgebouw 23 March 2.15 pm: NTR ZaterdagMatinee
Dutch Radio Choir /Philipp Ahmann; Ivan Monighetti, cello
Wantenaar – Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken (commissoned by NTR ZaterdagMatinee, WP)
Tchaikovsky – Nine Sacred Pieces
Gubaidulina – Canticle of the Sun

#DutchRadioChoir #GrootOmroepkoor #MathildeWantenaar #NTRZaterdagmatinee #SofiaGubaidulina

‘I decided to make an unembashed romantic gesture and blast people away’ – Mathilde Wantenaar composes new piece for Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

Mathilde Wantenaar (c) Karen van Gilst

Be creative on demand? Impossible, one would think. Yet it is reality for composers and artists who work on commission. Mathilde Wantenaar (1993) suffered acute choice stress when the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra asked her for a new piece. She was just working on a commission from the National Opera. ‘I felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights, totally paralysed. But I just couldn’t turn down such an attractive offer.’ On 11 October Prélude à une nuit américaine will premiere in De Doelen Rotterdam. A day later it sounds in AVROTROSVrijdagconcert in Utrecht.

Both your parents are musicians. How has this determined your life?

‘It’s the reason I exist at all. My mother studied cabaret and worked with a theatre company for a long time. At a certain point she stopped because she wanted to make theatre herself, also on the street. Looking for an accordionist she found my father. Together they performed all over the country, also at the outdoor festival of Oerol. They fell in love and then they conceived me. My mother teaches singing nowadays, she doesn’t perform herself anymore, my father does.’

‘He comes from a farmer’s family, and grew up in Soest as the youngest of seven children. My grandfather had a small side-trade in accordions and my father eventually went to the conservatory with that instrument. At first he studied classical music, but after a year he switched to the jazz department at the Conservatory of Hilversum. As a second main subject he studied jazz piano and since then he has done many different things. For example, he played tango with the Malando Orchestra, in which he also learnt how to play the bandoneon.’

‘My father is still very active, and also accompanies my mother’s presentation concerts. Sometime I join in as well, on guitar or vocals. For as long as I can remember, people came over for singing lessons. It’s always very nice, because they don’t start practicing right away but have a cup of coffee first. There will be people of all ages, from young to old, the atmosphere in our house is very warm. Only the other day I sang a duet with one of my mother’s students.’

‘As soon as I got piano lessons I came up with my own pieces. My father wrote them down, for I didn’t know musical notation myself yet. He played what he had written down and I would tell him which notes were right or wrong, I have a good musical memory. So my father was my first performer, haha. Yet I saw composing more as my own crazy little thing, which had nothing to do with anyone else. At grammar school I initially thought about becoming a scientist.’

‘But when I was able to take part in a composition project as part of our music lessons, the fat was in the fire. Asko|Schönberg performed a selection of our pieces in the Concertgebouw. That was so great! So after my final exams I enrolled in the preparatory course at Amsterdam Conservatory. I thought: if I don’t like it, I can still study chemistry or industrial design after all.’

Since then you have graduated and the assignments are streaming in. How do you deal with that?

‘Sometimes this is difficult. At the moment I’m working on a family opera that will premiere next year at the Opera Forward Festival. Then, out of the blue came this request from the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. My first reaction was: oh no! I had just heard that the opera was definitely on, and was completely delighted. It’s been my dream to make opera for a long time, but this was exactly in the same period. I thought: now I get such a great opportunity to write for orchestra, when I actually want to concentrate on my opera. That’s going to be very stressful.’

‘I felt like the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlights, totally paralysed. Simply from a planning point of view I couldn’t accept the commission. I asked programmer Floris Don if it couldn’t be postponed, but he really wanted to present my piece in October. I was endlessly deliberating: should I do it? It was too good an opportunity to turn down. At one point Floris asked me if I didn’t have something I could reuse. A golden tip, that helped me break the deadlock.’

‘At once I thought of a piece of material that I had wanted to elaborate on for a long time. Only the possibility had never occurred before. This musical motif arose from a composition in which I experimented with a twelve-tone melody. In the end this turned into something else, but this particular fragment has a beautiful, somewhat wrenching harmony. It is euphonious and at the same time a bit jazzy.’

‘I like that harmonious world. I am an admirer of Ravel and Debussy, but also of Tchaikovsky, especially of his Fourth Symphony. My intention was to write equally beautiful, long-held string lines. I studied how to build up such an expansive arc of tension and what harmonic progressions would help me realize it. I love it when the engine rolls and you feel that you are on your way to something. When at a certain moment the brass is added, a climax is created and everything floats in the air for a while. I decided to make an unabashed grand romantic gesture and blow people away.’

‘My piece is programmed along with music by Steve Reich and John Adams. Because of its jazzy harmonies and dancing rhythms it also has a somewhat American touch. At the same time it exudes a more French, nocturnal sultriness, the atmosphere of a nocturne. I’ve been hesitating about the title for a long time, because as soon as you give a piece a name, you create expectations. I prefer to keep it abstract.’

‘Initially I had Nocturne for orchestra in mind, but my friends thought that was too boring.  Then I considered Dans la nuit, a pun on “dance”, that simultaneously captures the French, nocturnal atmosphere. ‘Finally I settled on Prélude à une nuit américaine.’

With a wink: ‘This will end up being shortened to just Prélude after all.’

In March 2021 the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra peformed the Prelude for an empty Concertgebouw Amsterdam, but I was allowed to be present and make a podcast. (In Dutch)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/15jUDnj1yj2utVRXVJUDCB

#AndréDeRidder #AVROTROSVrijdagconcert #MathildeWantenaar #RotterdamsPhilharmonischOrkest

Mathilde Wantenaar on her new opera A Song for the Moon: ‘With music you can achieve anything’

Mahtilde Wantenaar (c) Karen van Gilst

In 2013 Mathilde Wantenaar (Amsterdam, 1993) participated in the project Boom|Amsterdam is an opera, two years later she wrote the mini-opera Personar for the first edition of the Opera Forward Festival. In March her family opera Een lied voor de maan (A Song for the Moon) was to have its world premiere in that very festival. Like all concerts in the Netherlands the performances were cancelled because of the outbreak of Covid-19. Let’s hope the planned performances in Madrid, Munich and Aix-en-Provence in May and June will proceed. Here’s the interview I conducted in February.

Mathilde Wantenaar’s love for music was instilled by her parents. Her mother teaches singing, her father plays the accordion, piano and bandoneon, and as long as she can remember she was surrounded by music at home. She played the guitar and cello herself, accompanied her mother’s students and sometimes sang along with them. She also composed her own pieces early on. – Something she initially considered to be her ‘own crazy little thing’; the idea of becoming a composer only arose when she took part in a composition project by Asko|Schönberg at secondary school.

Human voice

In 2011 she enrolled for the preparatory course at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where she subsequently studied composition, with cello, piano and singing as secondary subjects. Already during her studies she won several prizes, among others in the Alba Rosa Viëtor Composition Competition and the Princess Christina Competition. After graduating in 2016 she applied for a follow-up study in singing at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague.

From early childhood Wantenaar has had a great affinity with the human voice. In recent years this has led to a series of successful vocal works for renowned Dutch musicians and ensembles such as the soprano Johannette Zomer, the quintet Wishful Singing, the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the Dutch Radio Choir. It was obvious that one day there would be a sequel to her 20-minute opera Personar with which she concluded her composition studies.

Opera

‘As a child I regularly went to operas with my parents’, says Wantenaar. ‘I secretly dreamed of composing one myself, even though I initially considered my children’s pieces and rumblings at the piano to be a private thing. In that respect I lived completely in my own fantasy world. – Until I started thinking about what I would become when I grew up. When I auditioned for the Conservatory of Amsterdam, I was asked where I saw myself in ten years’ time. I answered I hoped to write an opera for Dutch National Opera. – For the big stage.’ She smiles furtively, as if she were ashamed of her youthful hubris.

That’s why she immediately accepted when Dutch National Opera offered her to take part in the workshop ‘composing for a youthful audience’ of the European Network of Opera Academies. The idea of creating a fairy-tale opera originated in 2017, during a workshop conducted by dramaturge Willem Bruls at La Monnaie in Brussels. ‘We formed a team, in which this idea bubbled up. But the question was what kind of fairy-tale exactly? So we started reading a lot of books and someone from the team tipped A Song for the Moon by Toon Tellegen, which she had read to her children herself.’

Toon Tellegen

‘I’ve known Toon Tellegen’s work for a long time, my parents used to read his stories to me when I was little. I still enjoy them. – Occasionally I read them to my boyfriend before we go to sleep. During a period when I was out of my depth at the conservatory I read the collection Misschien wisten zij alles (Maybe they knew everything) in one go. The stories are at the same time comforting, uplifting, wonderful and above all very beautiful. They lifted me above my grief and made me calm.’

However, she did not yet know A Song for the Moon when it was proposed. ‘When I read it, I was immediately touched. It appealed to me that Tellegen broaches themes like loneliness, identity, disappointment and friendship. I especially like the fact that music plays a central role in it, ideal for an opera. The Mole, the main character, undergoes a true development. In the beginning he is a bit shy and insecure, but in the end he crawls out of his shell thanks to the music, makes friends and goes out into the wide world.’

Cheering up the Moon

Wantenaar wrote the libretto herself, together with Willem Bruls, keeping as close as possible to the original: ‘Toon Tellegen’s language is already very musical and imitable. There are five singers and six instrumentalists and the opera lasts about an hour.’

‘In the first act, the Mole is on stage alone. He is lonely and seeks contact with the Moon, but when he greets it he gets no response. He wonders why. Can’t the Moon talk, doesn’t he want to talk, or doesn’t he know what to say? All those things of course also concern the Mole himself, but he doesn’t want to face his own loneliness. He decides to write a song to cheer up the Moon. This proves not to be easy, but in the end he succeeds and shows it to the Grasshopper, who is a conductor.’

‘Together they form an orchestra in the second act, with singing mice and Frog, the diva-tenor. This act is a somewhat comical counterpart to the quiet and sad first movement. They rehearse the song and perform it for the Moon, but when they look up expectantly afterwards, it looks rather sad. Everyone is deeply disappointed and the Mole crawls back into his little hole defeated. He wonders if the Moon is angry now, and may come down to shine straight in his face.’

The power of music

‘In the third and final act the Mole receives composition lessons from the wise Cricket. He looks at the song and says: “I know! It’s a beautiful song, but gloomy.” He changes a lowered tone (a flat tone is calles “mol” in Dutch) into a sharp one (a raised tone), upon which the song suddenly becomes cheerful. Yet the Mole doesn’t quite dare to believe in it yet. He needs the courage of the Grasshopper to present the new version to the Moon.’

‘This time the Moon does looks happy afterwards, he even glows! For a moment the Mole still has doubts about himself, but then he realizes he is good as he is: “I am the Mole and I remain the Mole. Sometimes I’m gloomy, but sometimes I’m cheerful.” He finds the courage to step up to the Earthworm and make his first real friendship. So everything turns out all right at the end of the opera.’

‘The great thing is that the story is easy for children to follow, but at the same time has so much philosophical depth that it is also interesting for adults. The Cricket sings: “With music you can achieve anything”. To me, that’s the core of this opera.’

More info and playlist here. 

#ASongForTheMoon #DutchNationalOpera #MathildeWantenaar #ToonTellegen #WillemBruls

Mathilde Wantenaar composes ‘Ballade’: ‘I briefly considered Ballad in Blue…’

The AVROTROSVrijdagconcert has long programmed lesser-known works from the classical canon as well as championing Dutch composers. On Friday, March 8, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play the world premiere of Ballade by Mathilde Wantenaar. As always, the concert will be broadcast live on NPO Klassiek.

Born in Amsterdam in 1993, Wantenaar has won many awards, the most recent being the Buma Classical Award 2023. It was handed to her in the Konzerthaus Wien this last December, prior to the world premiere of her Accordion Concerto. She composed this for Vincent van Amsterdam and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The award from copyright organization Buma/Stemra goes to the composer who brought in the highest amount of royalty’s in a given year. A remarkable achievement for, at 30 years old, Wantenaar is the youngest of eight winners since the prize was initiated in 2016. Only once before it was won by a woman, when in 2019 Vanessa Lann’s work turned out to have been performed most often.

Melodic and harmonic ingenuity

That Wantenaar followed in Lann’s footsteps last year is no wonder, for without exception, audiences and press alike are entranced by her appealing music. This combines striking melodic and harmonic ingenuity with an impressive richness of sound and intense lyricism.

Wantenaar’s style builds on the classical and romantic tradition, yet is entirely of our time. Many of her pieces are performed more frequently after the premiere, such as the Octet for strings and Prélude à une nuit Américaine. Both also sounded in 2019 in the AVROTROSVrijdagconcert and garnered enthusiastic response from the audience.

Time to commission a new piece from Wantenaar, decided then-programmer Astrid in ‘t Veld. Its premiere was scheduled for February 18, but when Wantenaar failed to meet the deadline, it was decided to give Prélude à une nuit Américaine a second run. Coincidentally the entire concert was then cancelled because of storm ‘Eunice’.

Forever polishing

Meanwhile, Ballade has been completed, but meeting the new deadline again caused Wantenaar some headaches. Shortly before she had to hand in her score to the orchestra, she was still brooding over the orchestration of a few bars. That sounds easier said than done to the average layperson: Wantenaar ‘keeps forever polishing until it’s absolutely perfect to her taste’, sighed her partner and intermediary just under a month before the premiere.

Ballade ties in with Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, explains Wantenaar after she’s finished her score: ‘The texture and playing of the strings at the end are borrowed from the opening of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto; Ballade dissolves, as it were, into the silvery fog in which his concerto begins. My final note is a G, the note on which the solo violin begins. This seemed to me a coherent and fresh connection.’

Floating and jazzy

In any case, the opening of Sibelius’ concerto was a source of inspiration: ‘Especially its quiet, floating and hazy atmosphere, combined with the almost improvisational character of the soloist’s melody.’ Remarkably, it is not the violinist but the pianist who opens the piece. ‘I had an image in mind of a (jazz) pianist, playing and improvising in complete freedom. In order to capture that flowing, dancey, and searching aspect, I strove to give the music a somewhat spontaneous and improvised character.’

She thought long and hard about the title: ‘I don’t want to fill in too much for the musicians and the audience, but try to find a title that fits the piece nicely. That’s why I often choose “classic titles” that can be interpreted broadly. Ballade sounds dance-like and lilting and also somewhat narrative. And like a ballad in light music, my composition has a quiet tempo and a melancholic undertone.

For a moment, the title Ballad in Blue played through her mind, ‘but I feared that this might be too close to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue’. Laughing she concludes: ‘However, I’m already starting to have second thoughts…’

#AVROTROSVrijdagconcert #DutchRadioPhilharmonicOrchestra #MathildeWantenaar #PréludeàUneNuitAméricaine