Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken
Choir (SATB) with divisi
6'
NTR ZaterdagMatinee
Groot Omroepkoor, conducted by Philipp Ahmann.
23 March 2019, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
Commissioned by the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, I set to music Herman Gorter's poem 'Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken' for the Groot Omroepkoor. His work stimulated my musical imagination before. Last year, for the Festival De Muze van Zuid, I set the poem 'De stille weg', performed by members of the Nederlands Kamerkoor, pianist Laurens de Man and violinist Eva Stegeman. This inspired me to look for another poem by Gorter and I stumbled upon 'Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken'. What appealed to me (as with 'De stille weg') was the stillness, the stratification, the imagery, the intangible and the transient. The poem evoked strong images in me. I pictured the poet sitting in a silent room at a table next to the window. The sun is hidden behind an endless expanse of white cloud cover and it is as if all colour has been pulled out of the world, although there is still plenty of light. Outside, there is life, but in the poet's room, everything sounds muted, it is as if time stands still and the air has solidified. We sit under a bell jar, shimmering dust particles float slowly in the air, and meanwhile the world slowly passes us by. It's nice to be there, but at the same time oppressive and lonely. I tried to capture the static floating feeling by choosing a very slow tempo with lots of homophonic words, among other things, so that there is not too much movement and the music/air seems almost stationary. The atmosphere in the room seems calm at first glance, but there is also a softly longing romantic undercurrent and underneath that a more darker oppression that bubbles to the surface in the second half. Another beautiful element in the poem is the light-dark play that I have tried to translate musically through dynamics and harmony.
DE VOLKSKRANT: However short Mathilde Wantenaar's adaptation of Gorter's poem is, it is enough to hear that she has a lot going for her.
128 syllables comprise Herman Gorter's poem Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken. Composer Mathilde Wantenaar, who set the poem to music for the Saturday matinee, spends an average of 2.5 seconds for each syllable. So it is not a fast piece, but because she does not repeat texts, as other composers often do, it is nevertheless over very quickly, in just over 5 minutes. However short it is, it is enough to hear that the 25-year-old Wantenaar has a lot going for her, and also knows how to use the possibilities of an a cappella choir - in this case the Groot Omroepkoor - very well. The matte, yet sultry atmosphere of the text takes shape in vocal contours, which, like the words themselves, feel somewhat old-fashioned, but in which exciting contrasting tones and vocal arrangements keep the music surprising.
Frits van der Waa, De Volkskrant, 25 March 2019.
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NRC: Wantenaar captures Gorter aptly in poignant and sensitive music.
In three works on Saturday, the Groot Omroepkoor showed how completely different composers deal with text and the human voice. Between Russian greats Tchaikovsky (melodic) and Gubaidoelina (instrumental), young Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar (1993) impressed with a short work for a cappella choir to a poem by Gorter. Wantenaar herself studied singing at the The Hague conservatory and thus knows her medium from personal experience, but Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weeks especially showed great compositional talent. The poem is from Gorter's sensitivist collection Verzen from 1890. Wantenaar was attracted by its 'stillness, layering, imagery, elusiveness and transience' - which is quite a lot, but at the same time very precisely put. Wantenaar's equally precise music begins from lying chords that evoke a bitter melancholic mood. Small movements within those chords bring relief and provide forward momentum. The calm, reflective progression occasionally breaks open into adventurous sound flowers (on 'each other', on 'far'), only to sink back again. The clever thing is that Wantenaar's music enhances the eloquence of Gorter's poetry, unintentionally making the poem stronger. A phrase like 'my eyes burn upwards' could be called pathetic, but with an elegant upward sway of repetition and imitation, deployed from the basses, Wantenaar actually creates a penetrating, pathos-free soundscape. Her vision of the words is always penetrating, and she has turned that vision into music with an apt hand. Her technical mastery is evident; even more impressive is the understated sense of dramaturgy with which she transports her listener almost carelessly. Thus, with the concise Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weeks, Wantenaar has delivered a near-perfect work.
Joep Statel, NRC, 25 March 2019.