Mathilde Wantenaar | Composer
HET PAROOL: And then suddenly soloist and orchestra dance with each other, and you sit and listen with a smile. In Mathilde Wantenaar’s Accordeon Concerto, soloist and orchestra dance together, but you can also hear a sad clown. You don’t need to use a lot of imagination to conjure up a black-and-white movie when listening to the brand-new Accordeon Concerto ‘the storyteller’ by Mathilde Wantenaar (1993). A movie set in Paris. That is due to Wantenaar’s language, but also to the nostalgic and lyrical quality of the instrument. Accordionist Vincent van Amsterdam had asked the Dutch composer to write a concerto. He came to the right place. She has known the instrument well since childhood, dancing to the music of her father, who is a jazz-accordionist. Van Amsterdam turned his performance into an adventure and truly became the storyteller from the title. The world premiere took place in December in Vienna, performed by the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien. In the Netherlands the Residentie Orkest baptized the piece. And because every configuration of musicians sounds good in the Muziekgebouw, it was possible to put eighty musicians on stage without overpowering the audience. For a long while, Wantenaar’s newest lingers in a sweet mood. This could take a while, the listener thinks. The tubular bells at the back of the orchestra enhance the ominous atmosphere. Then suddenly soloist and orchestra start dancing together, and you listen with a smile. Just as quickly, this feeling disappears and the accordion seems to depict a sad clown. Wantenaar plays with your mood. The music moves from one thing to another, from rough improvisation above a fierce rhythm in the strings to the sighing of the accordion. After the break the music-box tones of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. But what really lingers is the new Wantenaar: an inventive and soberly-written piece for a wonderful night out.” Frederike Berntsen, Het Parool, 18 March 2024.
DE VOLKSKRANT: Composer Mathilde Wantenaar can do anything, but in the 'Accordion Concerto' she lingers long on a few finds. When measured by copyright income, Mathilde Wantenaar is the Netherlands’ most successful composer. This resulted last December in the Buma Classical Award. And with two new pieces within a week, the thirty-year-old is on track for the next. First, Wantenaar’s new orchestral work Ballade premiered in Utrecht and Thursday Amsterdam got acquainted with the Concerto for accordion and orchestra, that premiered in Vienna last December. Success all-round, but the concerto conjures up the question why. That does not include the choice of solo-instrument. The days that it was considered a common windbox by the classical music world have long gone. If only because Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina wrote such amazing notes for the instrument. Wantenaar’s father plays accordion, that too sounds promising. And who would say no to the fingers of Vincent van Amsterdam, a hero on the accordion. The piece has a strong start in the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw. Four soft, dissonant accordion tones slowly crescendo. Without being able to detect exactly when, the string section of the Residentie Orkest joins in the sound. Climax, short silence, after which the orchestra lands with a long, descending scale. Nice, the reference to Mein junges Leben hat ein End, the organ-hit by the old Jan Pieterszoon Sweelink. That Wantenaar has a lot to offer is also apparent from a sad, two-part melody. Wantenaar envelopes it in a melting, 19th-century string sound. After a happy country dance, she transfers the whole setting in the blink of an eye to Paris. Bal-musette! In the meantime, the ‘why-question’ becomes more pertinent. To compose lively music is one thing, but not to overdo it is another. And again, the accordion dances happily, and again conductor Anja Bihlmaier and the orchestra reap cheerful notes. To add to the fun there is even a Piazzolla-pastiche. Luckily this forms the introduction to surprising moments. Van Amsterdam rattles the keys: no sound. He pushes false air from the bellows and embarks on a solo with intense, coarse sounds. For a moment the accordion turns into the beast that it can also be. A wounded beast that moans, shudders and cries. When it utters its final breath, the orchestra plays one last echo of Sweelink. Mein junes Leben hat ein End. Finished. To be fair, there is nothing Mathilde Wantenaar can’t do. She has a sense of style and of shape and has mastered writing for orchestra to the finest detail. But it is baffling that the concerto is built on so little musical material. With too many predictable minutes the music loses its sheen. Music doesn’t have to be ‘difficult’ and can be pleasant. But beware of boredom in the concert hall. Guido van Oorschot, De Volkskrant, 18 March 2024.
TROUW: DiDonato's lessons make a big impression, Wantenaar's 'Accordion Concert' equally so. [Joyce] DiDonato coached three singers this morning, and did so inimitably. It was intriguing, entertaining and funny. And she answered wonderfully when a young composer in the audience asked how to make meaningful music. ‘Ask yourself what story you want to tell with your music, with what feeling you want to send your audience home. Stay close to yourself, touch them, give them something to enjoy.’ It was as if composer Mathilde Wantenaar had heard those words. The same night, the Residentie Orkest in the Muziekgebouw, led by the excellent Anja Bihlmaier, played the Dutch premiere of her Concerto for Accordeon and Orchestra. Written for the virtuosic Vincent van Amsterdam, who played the piece with great conviction and evident joy. Wantenaar plays deliciously with the expectations of the audience when it thinks of the accordion. You continually expect a singer to appear – from Paris or de Jordaan – to join in. There was a tango, and a melody that sounded like it came directly from a French operetta by Massager or Hahn. As with DiDonato, it was intriguing, funny and entertaining. Wantenaar’s humour hits you in the guts when Van Amsterdam suddenly yanks open his instrument or conjures up amusing, loud dissonances. Or when he simply allows a whiff of air to escape. Wantenaar writes delightfully tactile music, and in passing adds ominous layers. The silent bell floating over the soft ending speaks volumes. Programmers, do not leave this piece on the shelf. Please perform it more often. These times deserve a Wantenaar. Peter van der Lint, Trouw, 15 March 2024.
DE VOLKSKRANT: Star violinist Alina Ibragimova shines in Sibelius' Violin Concerto in TivoliVredenburg. “Not one, not two, but three highlights last Friday in TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, led by the Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, played a programme consisting of Carl Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony, the Violin Concerto by Sibelius – starring Alina Ibragimova – and a premiere of the Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar. Her brand-new Ballade is typically Wantenarian: eclectic, free from pretention, and saturated with French nostalgia. You find yourself in a Parisian salon during the fin de siècle, a recording studio in pre-war New Orleans or a slum in Buenos Aires. Charming trombones meet silky-soft violins, but Ballade remains somewhat fragmented and never really breaks free. During the groovy moments you wish The Buddy Rich Band on stage since the classically-rehearsed jazzy rhythms stagger like a new-born baby goat on its stiff little legs.” Dennis Weijers, De Volkskrant, 10 March 2024
DIE PRESSE: Exuberant accordion sounds. Did Bruckner's initial difficulties have anything to do with the unconventional opening piece? The premiere of the Accordion Concerto by the young Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar was scheduled instead, and this piece explores completely different spheres of sound than Bruckner. This skilfully arched opus also has meditative traits. But above all, unbridled exuberance is the trump card. An invitation, flirting with entertaining tones, to savour life in all its facets before it is too late. Loosely based on Sweelinck's hymn junges Leben hat ein Ende, my "Mein Freud und auch mein Weh", which Wantenaar quotes repeatedly in her concerto. The audience cheered the virtuoso soloist Vincent van Amsterdam and the composer in equal measure. Walter Dobner, Die Presse, 11 December 2023.
UTAH ARTS REVIEW: Poschner brings variety and vitality to Utah Symphony program. Poschner’s enchanting interpretation of the Wantenaar employed a level of subtlety and sensitivity rarely heard in performances of new works. Wantenaar wrote the piece in 2019, when she was 26, on a commission from the Rotterdam Philharmonic. It has a misty, atmospheric quality like the Debussy piece referenced in its title, but with more of a sense of drama and pathos. Wantenaar’s Prelude also has a more advanced harmonic language than Debussy’s, flirting with 12-tone serialism in a post-modern way, while keeping a sense of harmonic tension and resolution. Wantenaar’s main theme, repeated more than once, features primordial rumbling in the timpani and low strings which grows into scales and arpeggios throughout the orchestra, building to a climax and then dissipating into a gentle melody on solo trumpet or violin. With clear, conscientious phrasing that made use of every note, Poschner infused the piece with a sense of forward-moving tension, pulling back just enough to give its still, delicate moments a chance to breathe. Rick Mortensen, 18 November 2023.
TROUW: Mathilde Wantenaar wrote a delightfully sprightly piece for Free the Piano Biënniale. Mathilde Wantenaar's new piano concerto, inspired by Bach, had its world premiere in London on Sunday and had its first performance in the Netherlands here. What a delightful piece this is, with a fantastic opening theme that breaks free from a rhythmic string of tone repeats on the piano. The theme had been singing around in Wantenaar's head for years, waiting to be deployed one day. It darts wonderfully into the piece and often returns as an ear-worming pop-up motif in various guises throughout the composition. 'My sprightly Rhapsody wants to go all the way' Wantenaar wrote a piece that is delightfully not of this era, harking back to a carefree time when triads and sonorous harmonies had not yet been jettisoned. It is written with great skill, crisp in structure and bursting with pure playing pleasure. It has the drive of fellow composer Joey Roukens, is slightly less rough, but just as uplifting. As Wantenaar put it beforehand during a chat with Van den Bercken, "My sprightly Rhapsody wants to go all the way". After more than 15 minutes, the piece ended in the same rhythmic zing of the piano. Van den Bercken and Britten Sinfonia made it a real experience. Wantenaar's Rhapsody also figures in Listen First, a 3D music installation in a dome tent, which is free to visit. Entering on stocking feet, the tent is highlighted in pink. You can walk around or lie down on the soft surface. While walking, as if in the composition, you discover different facets of Wantenaar 's music, from which fragments can be heard. Sometimes the piano is nearby, sometimes a viola or a cello. You choose for yourself. Nice. Peter van der Lint, Trouw, 20 April 2023.
DE VOLKSKRANT: At the Piano Biennale, Mathilde Wantenaar's Rhapsody for Piano and Strings proved to be a sunny, playful piece. For the second edition, through Sunday, striking keyboard types from halfway around the world had been brought to Arnhem and Nijmegen. Bad luck that was, in 2021. Were Arnhem and Nijmegen warming up to a new Piano Biennale, the coronavirus drove the first edition to the internet. On Wednesday, you could understand the relief of pianist Daria van den Bercken, the founder and artistic director. For the second edition, through Sunday, she is bringing striking keyboard types from halfway around the world to the eastern Netherlands. Free the Piano, was the slogan of the opening concert. There was something to be said for kicking off with Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. Admittedly, he wrote the piece for harpsichord and small orchestra, but the frenzied, never-before-seen solo that emerges can be explained in emancipatory terms. Alas, how correct it sounded. Even though the soloist, Iranian American Mahan Esfahani, likes to portray himself as the enfant terrible of the harpsichord profession. Esfahani's Bach rattled virtuoso, but the story of a spectacular release was missing. If Mathilde Wantenaar wanted to free the piano from something, it must be the shackles of modernism. Her Rhapsody for Piano and Strings received its world premiere in London last week. At Nijmegen concert hall De Vereeniging, it turned out to be a sunny, playful piece that unfolded like a spring day. Wantenaar built a tight construction, with repeating tones, main and subsidiary motifs. Rachmaninov blew by, Bach popped up. Nice how the piano sometimes melded with the English strings of Britten Sinfonia. Life was good, under the fingers of Daria van den Bercken. But with Free the Piano, you'd rather expect something revolutionary. Guido van Oorschot, 20 April, 2023.
NRC: Piano Biennale successfully launched with new piano concerto Wantenaar. The first real Piano Biennale kicked off in Nijmegen on Wednesday. In corona time there was also an online edition, but now there is plenty of live piano music in filled halls in Arnhem and Nijmegen for five days. And filled was the cosily decorated Vereeniging. The average age was also a lot lower than is often the case at classical concerts. The Piano Biennale is the brainchild of pianist Daria van den Bercken, who was present everywhere as a radiant hostess and who also performed brilliantly in Mathilde Wantenaar ' s new piano concerto. The opening concert Free the piano immediately showed the festival's ambition to think outside the box. Indeed, besides Wantenaar, Britten Sinfonia also played Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto , which was composed not for piano but for harpsichord. In Bach's work, Van den Bercken explained from the stage, we witness the birth of the keyboard as a solo instrument. So this evening, the very first and the very latest piano concerto faced each other. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani made this once more clear with his frenzied solo cadence: the harpsichord broke out of its accompaniment role here and immediately steamed up through centuries of musical history, with swirling note storms and pounding rhythms. Esfahani's leering glances into the hall left no mistaking the music-historical weight of the moment. Then the slow movement, a trio with flutist Thomas Hancox and violinist Thomas Gould, was blood-curdlingly beautiful. Wantenaar' s new work had its world premiere at the Barbican Centre in London last week, underlining once again. With her Rhapsody for piano and strings , Wantenaar wrote an energetic and upbeat work bursting with zest for action. After the hammering single-note motif with which soloist Van den Bercken opened the dance, the main theme followed, a broad gesture of dashing chords, followed by a driving rhythm on the keynote. Against this were rhythmically free piano reflections. The work constantly alternated between these two tracks, in a colourful, romantic, sometimes verging on neoclassical fantasy music, which was rhythmically and harmonically sophisticated enough to captivate from beginning to end. A very good idea of the Piano Biennale was the '3D music show' Listen First , in which you could listen to Wantenaar' s work before (or after) the premiere. And not just listen: on stocking feet, you were led into a pastel-pink dome, with a mattress floor and speakers all around. It sounded as if you were standing in the middle of the ensemble. You could lie down, or walk around, influencing your perception of the music: closer to the piano, closer to the cellos. The more often you listen, the more you hear, and especially with new music, this is a great bonus. Joep Stapel, NRC Handelsblad, 20 April 2023.
THE ARTS DESK: Bercken, Britten Sinfonia, Milton Court review - beleaguered ensemble shows its value. A high-spirited programme combining old and new music hits the spot. In the kerfuffle over the proposed decimation of English National Opera, the BBC Singers and the BBC orchestras, the removal of all Arts Council England’s funding for the Britten Sinfonia has slipped a bit under the radar, but is no less egregious. This 30-year-old ensemble seems to be doing everything to tick ACE boxes: regionally based in the East of England (an area not oversupplied with music), a full programme of community and educational work, a young composers development scheme – all alongside the main ensemble giving thoughtfully-programmed concerts at the highest standard. The last two of these aspects were very much on display last night at Milton Court in London, a programme then being repeated in Saffron Walden and Norwich. Playing without a conductor, the group was led by Thomas Gould from the violin and Daria van den Bercken from the piano, with the thread that held everything together being Bach. So it was fitting that we started with the fifth Brandenburg Concerto. This had Gould and flautist Thomas Hancox as soloists, with van den Bercken on the piano (the three pictured below), starting in the role of accompanist before elbowing her way to the fore in what she described as “the first piano concerto”, the beginning of a path that ultimately led to Rach 3. It is unusual to hear Bach ensemble music with a piano, and some people would reject it out of hand. I found it sounded a bit strange as continuo, but was perfect when the extraordinary cadenza at the end of the first movement emerged, Bercken’s lightning-fast ribbons of notes flowing like melted butter, and we could see in this Bach a glimpse of the concerto’s future as a form. Next was a premiere from Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar (b.1993). We heard her new Rhapsody for piano and strings, 14 minutes of music that wasn’t profound, but didn’t aspire to be, aiming at “playful” and “fun”. It was certainly both of those. Its episodic form, driven from the piano, called to mind Rhapsody in Blue, but rooted in a folky modality where Gershwin used jazz. There were nods to Bach in the fugue that emerged in the latter parts – bassist Benjamin Russell showing fleet fingers – and van den Bercken’s playing was perky and full of character. After the interval we heard a wind quintet by David John Roche, composed as part of the Magnum Opus scheme, supporting early-career composers. Sentimental Espionage Music was also a lot of fun, with ingenious scoring and a real brio, better perhaps in its sparkling fast music than in the slower central panel, but convincing as a whole. Calling to mind at different points Jean Françaix and Malcolm Arnold, it also found space for a reference to the theme from Inspector Gadget. Both the Wantenaar and Roche pieces shared something of the character of Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks concerto, but to say that the older piece towered over them is not to disparage, but to acknowledge one of Stravinsky’s most incredible creations. Composed in the year when his first wife died, his daughter died and he nearly died, there is not a hint of mortality in this delightfully alive music. There is an obvious debt to Bach in the scoring, in the shapes of the melodies, and in the fughettas that abound, but it is one of the most unmistakeably Stravinskian pieces, in its wit, ironic poise and unpredictable rhythm. It is a properly hard piece to do without conductor, and perhaps as a result the tempos in the first and last movements were a touch on the safe side. But the ensemble was very tight, not just in the tricksy fast bits, but in the exposed string chorales at the end of the first two movements. The almost Bartókian night music of the second movement was beautifully hazy, with bassoonist Sarah Burnett and Thomas Hancox enjoying their spotlight moments. The third movement had a pleasingly menacing opening, which never lost momentum as it hurtled through an irresistible last two minutes. To finish we had an early-ish Haydn symphony, No.22, nicknamed “The Philosopher” for its weighty first movement. This was a revelation, Haydn meeting Bach in an unlikely encounter. The steady tread of the cellos and basses has a violin melody thrown over the top, the horns then biting through the texture like the chorale tune in a Bach fantasia. It was a delight, as was the rest of the symphony, back on more familiar Haydn territory, but played with an unaffected lightness of touch that was a pleasure to hear. Bernard Hugues, The Arts Desk, 15 April 2023.
SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL: Premieres and predecessors: the artful programming of the Britten Sinfonia and Daria van den Bercken. The Britten Sinfonia and pianist Daria van den Bercken presented a wonderfully fresh and well-curated programme to a very receptive audience at Milton Court Concert Hall last Friday evening. The programme, while presenting works from the Baroque period all the way to world premieres, nevertheless had a strong and cohesive strand running through it: all four major works presented that evening paid homage to Baroque music in one way or another. Mathilde Wantenaar’s Rhapsody for Piano and Strings took Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.5 — opening piece of the evening — as its starting point, as well as incorporating aspects of the fugue in D minor from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier; in Stravinsky’s humorous and inventive concerto Dumbarton Oaks we see the avant-garde composer tipping his hat towards Baroque practices and conventions, while Haydn’s Symphony No.22 in E-flat major — in the same key as Dumbarton Oaks — begins by ‘alluding to a mysterious and antiquated “church” style in the opening movement’ (from programme notes) before shedding its disguise and taking off on a tour de force in the classical style. I take pains to explain the cohesiveness of the programme because I cannot stress how much this well-balanced programme allowed me to listen to classical music with fresh ears. Despite the inclusion of canonical names like Bach and Haydn, it was clear that the pieces were put together to complement each other rather than simply supporting one big masterpiece. Thus, each piece performed sounded as wonderfully fresh as its predecessor. This experience was also helped by the freedom with which the players onstage approached the music. The Britten Sinfonia players and Daria van den Bercken opened the evening with a brilliant performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.5. Violinist Thomas Gould — who is also the leader of the Britten Sinfonia — carried with him an infectious enthusiasm for the music, while van den Bercken, playing the part of the harpsichord on a Steinway grand, rose to the challenge and was able to weave in and out of the texture, sometimes cushioning the sounds of the two other soloists and at other times launching into flourishes of virtuosic passages, conjuring beautiful colours on the way and culminating in a very exciting cadenza at the end of the first movement. There was wonderful musicianship between trio — Gould and van den Bercken alongside flautist Thomas Hancox – but it was the freedom with which they played and enjoyed themselves that really set us in the right mood. Mathilde Wantenaar’s Rhapsody for Piano and Strings is a beautifully unpretentious and accessible piece bursting with creativity. Placed after the Brandenburg concerto, it seemed to show a modern twist on the excitement found in Bach’s counterpoint and polyphony, while injecting more contemporary rhythms into very simple and accessible melodic motifs. The music captured my attention with its ever-changing moods and waves of energy. Wantenaar seemed unafraid to make references, almost welcoming them: I detected hints of Bach, Bartók, Rachmaninov and even something that made me think of The Pirates of the Caribbean! Most importantly, it sounded like a lot of fun and couldn’t have had better performers to bring it alive for the first time in the public sphere than van den Bercken and the Britten Sinfonia. After a brief piece — Sentimental Espionage Music — by David John Roche, the second half of the concert continued with Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks concerto. To perform the concerto conductor-less is quite a challenge, but the performance worked well with Gould leading — whose enthusiasm and strong sense of rhythm were never lacking — allowing the audience to see how the players worked together, making the performance more exciting. The switch to a more classical style of playing for the Haydn symphony showed just how versatile the players of the Britten Sinfonia were. Kudos must be given especially to the horn players for tackling such a difficult part, but the virtuosity of this rather compact consort really deserved the applause they got that evening. All in all, a wonderfully programmed concert of light-heartedness and fun made all the better by a wonderful set of players. Jeremy Chan, Seen and Heard International, 17 April 2023.
NRC: New violin concerto by Mathilde Wantenaar is already beautiful and will mature even further. The NTR ZaterdagMatinee on Saturday afternoon premiered the First Violin Concerto vanin, written for and played by violinist Simone Lamsma Side note: Wantenaar left the orchestration of the first and third movements to composer Tijmen van Tol out of time constraints. Beautiful and fairytale-like is Wantenaar's music, with enough harps and chimes to imagine yourself in a rosy world, but too little to become kitschy Low notes are so rare that they stand out when they sound briefly. The first movement (lento, 'slow') seems a reverie to a beautiful past, with here the vague outlines of a Gershwin-era New York, and there a fantasy about one of the millennial nights Conductor Karina Canellakis sends beautiful dynamic waves through the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra , though the strings sometimes react a little tame to so many beautiful memories. Anti-virtuoso Violinist Simone Lamsma, for whom the violin concerto was written, wanted to be "put to work" by Wantenaar But Wantenaar does not do that with lots of virtuoso passages with quick notes and complicated jumps Not at all Most of it could be called downright anti-virtuoso Slow melodies should be played by Lamsma; long lines, at the slowest point even one note of nine slow strokes long. Even in the cadenza (the solo, flowing from Bach suite-like towards Eastern European emotional) where Lamsma has to play so high that she almost touches her baton, it still has to be relatively slow That brings a whole different level of difficulty: hitting intonation, colouring, building and releasing tension. Lamsma brings it off well, but you also notice that this anti-virtuosity is exciting territory Not everywhere is she equally sure what to do with it Blending into the orchestra or telling her own story Sometimes she seems to lack her own conviction. Nice things The first two movements are most exciting in their slowness The third, more cheerfully fluttering movement succeeds a little less as a unit It is more like a motley collection of 'fun things' all sounding in turn A few notes of muted trumpet, contrabassoon, a big drum, briefly some bells, a piece of vibraphone, then suddenly a Russian-looking tutti; before you know it you forget to pay attention to the solo violinist, even now that that part is more virtuosic. The violin concerto is already beautiful, but the impression remains that there is still something left to mature that we will taste in subsequent performances Who knows then, perhaps in a full orchestration by Mathilde Wantenaar herself.
BASIA CON FUOCO: Werelden van klankkleuren, van van Veldhuizen en Mahler en van Wantenaar en Bruckner in het Concertgebouw. Like Rick van Veldhuizen, Mathilde Wantenaar opted for a wonderful world of sound, especially in the first movement, a Lento. After an initial shrouded major chord in the orchestra, the piece opens with a descending four-note motif on the violin, in a Phrygian-minor-like church tone type. That motif will be repeated several times, a beautifully archaic lamento theme that forces the timid major mood of the opening notes into melancholic-minor. Lush subdued orchestral sounds follow, to which the violin repeatedly gives a turn towards sober resignation. The Lento movement ends with a long lilting cadenza in the highest registers, partly in thin flageolet tones. The second movement is also rather slow. In it, the composer opted for a more traditional tonal idiom, though these do contrast with moments of excitingly diffuse harmony, and the movement also ends quietly with the Frygian-like motif on the violin with which the concerto opened. Only the third movement is fast, with many dance rhythms, and again breakneck parts for the solo violin. Simone Lamsma seems to have said to the composer write down anything you want, I'll play it anyway. And that happened. Associations with Sibelius, Szymanovski and De Falla sometimes loom large, and in that order the composers actually also reflect the structure of this violin concerto. Neil van der Linden, Basia con Fuoco, 2022.
NRC: Four string quartets in colourful marathon. String Quartet Biennale The cancelled String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam offered its loyal audience one marathon concert after all Four Dutch quartets showed that the string quartet as a form is far from exhausted. The Ruysdael Quartet allowed the melodic richness of Dvorák's Thirteenth String Quartet (1895) to come to full fruition, something composer Mathilde Wantenaar also seems to hark back to in the beautiful second movement of her brand new quartet, which the Belinfantes brought as an encore. Joost Galema, NRC, 8 February 2022.
DE VOLKSKRANT: Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra makes Wantenaar's music meander like the river she envisaged. Shostakovich swings like a Latin American dance to pianist Yuja Wang's fingers and high heels. It turned out to be no one-night stand. Back in 2019, Mathilde Wantenaar (now 28) wrote a piece for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. On Thursday, new music of hers had its world premiere at De Doelen, conducted by chief conductor Lahav Shani: Meander. Music like a river, that's what Wantenaar had in mind. Carried along by drowsy violins, you suddenly hear a surge in the flutes. In halftone distances and changing sound fields, you hear the water flowing. In the frothy softness of the strings, comparisons with Debussy also come to mind. Then you hear harp strings offering the tranquillity of a wider bed. But not for long: from the depths, low strings gurgle, timpani rumble and horns give churning signals. Accessible and evocative is Wantenaar's music; the RPhO is the right interpreter. Maartje Stokker, De Volkskrant, 3 October 2021.
NRC: Pianist Yuja Wang kicks off Rotterdam 'residency' with virtuoso Shostakovich. Ominous Wantenaar The concert began with the world premiere of a new orchestral work by young Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar (1993). Her Meander (2021), inspired by the meandering course of rivers, initially sounded slightly ominous. Beneath a minor melody, low pizzicato double basses suggest a threat from the depths. As the melody expands, the texture gradually becomes denser and woolier, after which the music almost overflows and then slides into lighter realms - an effect the composer herself describes as "the sun suddenly shining on the water". Initially, Meander is reminiscent of that other great river work, Smetana's Moldau . But after a brief receding of the current, Wantenaar's orchestral river suddenly bursts its banks, with sharp, rhythmically irregular thrusts kept tightly in line by conductor Shavi. A swelling bass drum and tam-tam bring the work's climax; then there is only the gentle plucking of a harp and the melody of the beginning returns, now even more menacing from the knowledge of the havoc wrought by the river. Jason Hillebrand, NRC, 1 October 2021.
NRC: 'Een lied voor de maan' exudes infectious joy in everything. "There behind you!" You can almost hear the children shouting, when the Mole asks straight into the camera if we have seen the Earthworm sometimes. But the room is empty and what we shout at home to the screen the Mole cannot hear. It's the only time the lack of live audience is really noticeable in family opera A song for the moon , which still premiered a year after its cancellation due to the corona outbreak during the. It's a delightful, well-sung and played, beautifully dressed performance that leaves you wishing for a full house - and vice versa. The mole (endearingly performed by mezzo Vera Fiselier) composes the song from the title to cheer up the moon: it must be lonely up there, which Wantenaar illustrates with a delightful chorus. The animal orchestra performs the song ("A wrought monstrosity, but beautiful," judges the conducting grasshopper), but the moon remains glum. The cricket gives "musicological compositional advice": "The mole should be a cross." In other words: the song sounded too gloomy, raise a few notes and you have major. The mole skims past an existential crisis (should she be a cross?), but it works and the moon is profoundly grateful to her. The story is vintage Toon Tellegen, funny, slightly wry and unobtrusively wise, with sharply struck characters. Wantenaar also hits the characters sharply: the braller frog with his endless outbursts, the pedantic grasshopper, the nuffy field mouse who squeaks the 'Queen of the Night '. Wantenaar's music is bright and accessible but never predictable, spiced with a touch of Latin and a pinch of Gershwin. In the rehearsal scene, she indulged in witty quotations: Beethoven's Fifth with a wavering dissonance, the riff from Roy Orbison's 'Pretty woman'. No wonder the moon shows a smile: A song exudes infectious fun in everything. Joep Stapel, NRC, 22 March 2021.
HET PAROOL: Small 'advantage': the viewer can zap. Festival edition or not: the pandemic also forces the fifth Opera Forward Festival to go completely digital. The programme is packed as ever, with both light and heavier pieces, including from young creators. The fifth annual Opera Forward Festival should have been a party edition, but due to the pandemic, which also threw a spanner in the works last year, everything turned out differently than usual. That is, from the first to the last second digitally. You have to hand it to The National Opera for pulling out all the stops to make it a real festival, with, as it should be, a programme so packed that it was hardly possible to watch and listen to everything. In an interview with DNO' s chief dramaturge Luc Joosten, Pierre Audi, the man who devised the Opera Forward Festival, said that while a digital version of the festival has advantages ("you can zap"), it can still, at best, only offer part of the real experience, namely "undergoingthe live event of unamplified voices singing above an or chestra". "The real experience is a thousand times stronger," Audi said, "no matter how sophisticated the digital version is." Amen, you say. Audi also underlined the importance of the OFF, which wants to "bring young people and young creators to opera, broaden the audience and show that opera is a rich art form with the potential to survive for a long time". One of those young creators is Amsterdam composer Mathilde Wantenaar (27), who, as a music student for the very first OFF, was allowed to write a chamber opera together with other students in order to taste and experience what is involved in such a project. Toon Tellegen The result, personar, was so successful that soon afterwards she was commissioned to write an opera for the festival's main programme. A family performance admittedly, for children aged six and up, but since five co-producers are involved (besides DNO, Opera Zuid, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Festival Aix-en-Provence and Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid), this is anything but a childish affair. The play, A Song for the Moon, on a text by Toon Tellegen, was streamed yesterday and attracted over 12,000 visitors. It was staged by Béatrice Lauchaussée, whom Wantenaar had met at a meeting of the European Network of Opera Academies. A Song for the Moon is a moving story about a melancholic mole who wants to write a melody for the moon, because he suspects it is lonely. This initially backfires, as the moon sheds a tear when he hears the song. But by turning the mole into a cross (the listener of six is not underestimated), the song becomes joyous. The moon laughs, but the mole remains melancholic and wonders if he himself would become cheerful if he turned into a cross. Fortunately, he gets comfort from his friend the earthworm. Killer aria Wantenaar's music is completely tonal, as if Schoenberg never existed, and peppered with allusions, near-citations and deliberate quotations. Except for a long melisma on the word 'cross', the text is set entirely syllabically. The images Lauchaussée came up with to accompany it are sweet and funny. The frog angling in a tub of water is unforgettable. Erik Voermans, Het Parool, 22 March 2021.
NRC: Adventurous and sharp season opener. At the Rotterdam Doelen this weekend, the season opened with an adventurous concert by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra led by chief conductor Lahav Shani. Relief and joy also prevailed at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra last week: finally live concerts again, on stage, in front of 'real' audiences. For the season's opening, a programme that was adventurous in every way was rigged The young composer Mathilde Wantenaar wrote her Fanfare to Break the Silence for brass ensemble (with percussionist) especially for the occasion It turned out to be a varied work with two faces A penetrating, tattoo-like solo lament flows into big band-like collective swing The high and widely spaced horns were noticeably more in their element in the 'classical' passages. Mischa Spel, NRC, 7 September 2020.
NRC: Legend Jackie du Pré does not come to life. The makers of a chamber opera about cello legend Jackie du Pré want to tell more about her than the affair that made her famous. Musically, it is raunchy, with a starring role for cellist Doris Hochscheid. We should remember the legendary Jacqueline du Pré as an "extraordinary cellist" and not just for "that story", thinks Doris Hochscheid. That is why Hochscheid initiated the chamber opera We'll never let you down, in which two friends of 'Jackie' look back on her life. The performance premiered online at the Cello Biennale on Wednesday and can be watched back for free. Du Pré (1945-1987) was an incomparable cellist who deteriorated physically and mentally due to MS. Already at the age of twenty-eight, she had to quit, her glamorous marriage to Daniel Barenboim ended in dire straits, and 14 years later she died. By "that story", Hochscheid is referring to Jackie's affair with her brother-in-law (conductor Christopher Finzi), which was widely covered in a book and film (Hilary and Jackie) in the late 1990s. Sister Hilary claimed she had done Jackie her husband out of mercy. Ironically, the makers of We'll never let you down are so keen on reparations that it is constantly about "that story". Their view of the affair - Finzi was a sex predator - is plausible, but nowhere does it become convincing. The friends are merely vehicles for information transfer. They do not come alive, and Jackie herself only in the beautiful final scene. Composer René Samson had only written the third act when he died. Mathilde Wantenaar (first) and Max Knigge (second) penned the remaining acts. That works fine, all three composing strongly for voice as well as cello, which plays the real leading role. Hochscheid visibly enjoys being an actress and her cello playing is superb, as is the interaction with pianist Frans van Ruth. Baritone Mattijs van de Woerd is charming and natural. Joep Stapel, NRC, 30 October 2020.
NRC: Mathilde Wantenaar outshines Steve Reich. The Rotterdam Philharmonic played American music by John Adams and Steve Reich, but began the concert with a world premiere of its own. The Americans were way off in Mathilde Wantenaar ' s new work (1993), which she had aptly named Prélude à une nuit américaine. There was more to the piece though, such as the stunning instrumentation art, and it contained the most captivating and consistent music of the evening. In the Prélude, based on an earlier work by Wantenaar himself, the past resonated: lush late-Romantic harmonies, mahlerian melodies, snippets of Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. But the simultaneity of all kinds of musical worlds and the clever mastery created something very unique. Through several climaxes, the piece worked elegantly towards a finale in which you might recognise Bruckner: a drawn-out, harmonically static crescendo, which, from delightful fairy tunes for celesta, harp and violin flageolets, gradually took hold of the entire orchestra. Joep Stapel, NRC, 14 October 2019.
DE VOLKSKRANT: Violinist Leila Josefowicz makes a great impression with her sometimes menacing but mostly spring-like tone. The work dates from 1993, the birth year of Mathilde Wantenaar, who has long outgrown the designation of 'talent'. The evening opened with her Prélude à une nuit américaine. If you want to see anything American in the notes at all, you see it through a French lens from around 1910. Where Wantenaar does take an unexpected turn in most of her pieces, here the impressionistic pastiche meter does hit very high. The piece is built from the harp, the sound eruption is fine. Merlijn Kerkhof, De Volkskrant, 14 October 2019.
DE VOLKSKRANT: A risky venture: combining Bach's work with music from Sufism, the mystical Islamic movement. But it works. What connects Bach to Sufism is soon told. Nothing. Or well, with creative reasoning a dotted line can be drawn: the spiritual. For the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, it was enough for a dare. The programme Bach & Sufi cuts parts from Bach's Hohe Messe with contemporary music rooted in mystical Islamic traditions by Iranian singer Haleh Seyfizadeh and tarspeler Ali Ghamsari. Such a project has a high stumbling hazard. Before you know it, you are listening to a fragment this and a song that. Fortunately, the wind players were gis to involve a professional woman. She is a composer and is called Mathilde Wantenaar (pictured). She put the knife to the Hohe Messe, put her ear to the ground in Persia and arranged a feast of music that generously transcends good intentions. Within Wantenaar's framework, Bach combines wonderfully with melancholic or ecstatic Sufi sound. After arabesques in the throat and on the long-necked lute, it is fine drifting out on a serenely blown Qui tollis peccata mundi (who takes away the sins of the world). A plucked-bass Credo surprisingly creeps out of an oriental swing number. And usually sounding a heavy-handed accompaniment under Et incarnatus est (He who became flesh), Wantenaar turns it into a joyful earworm. Add the tight voice of Canadian soprano Elisabeth Hetherington, and the link between the traditions is complete. In the coming months, the Nederlands Blazersensemble will tour the halls with this programme. We put a bet on it. Bach & Sufi will be a classic. Guido van Oorschot, De Volkskrant, 9 November 2018.
HET PAROOL: No less than sensational. Last year, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble drew full houses with a programme that paired parts of Johann Sebastian Bach' s Hohe Messe with music that can be traced back to the originally Persian tradition of Sufism. We may know the eye-catchers of that Sufism, but what the 'dancing dervishes' are all about (we may take this literally) is more enigmatic. In Bach & Sufi, Catholic worship and the spiritual world of Sufism come together in the form of fifteen pieces in arrangements by the young Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar. She also impressed last week at the NTR ZaterdagMatinee with the choral work Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken. Bach and the ecstatic music of Iranian tarspeler and composer Ali Ghamsari, go together wonderfully, and that is only possible because they draw from the common source of surrender and humility. This brings together even Bach's flowing lines and the rock-hard glottis beats of Iranian vocalism. The music is played with great empathy by the horns and sung by Haleh Seyfizadeh and Elisabeth Hetherington. As always, Ghamsari's tarsolos are nothing short of sensational. Erik Voermans, Het Parool, 30 March 2019.
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.
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.
NRC: An inspired interplay with the ensemble. Amsterdam Sinfonietta tours with young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana. She plays wonderfully, from Bach to Wantenaar. Italian pianist Beatrice Rana impressed two years ago with her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, for which she received an Edison Classical award in the category 'The Discovery'. Now Rana is touring the Netherlands and Italy with Amsterdam Sinfonietta to play two of Bach's keyboard concertos. In the Muziekgebouw on Saturday evening, she performed the most famous, BWV 1052. The tempo was high. She wanted nothing to do with an abstracted pseudo harpsichord doucher à la Gould: Rana played plenty of piano, with a choice of colours and atmospheres. The solo note cascades sounded a tad murky, but her intelligent playing, more focused on expression and eloquence than classical proportions, impressed, as did the inspired ensemble playing. When Rana plays two Bach concerts next week, it will be at the expense of one of the most beautiful pieces on the programme: Bartók's short piano solo Night Music, from the series Szabadban, Sz. 81, will then be dropped. Especially in contrast to Bach, this imaginative evocation of a Hungarian summer night formed a breathtaking listening experience. Rana glowingly strung the fragments together. Mathilde Wantenaar, who only last week impressed with a choral work in the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, had adapted her Octet into Night Music for string orchestra. With a controlled surge, the work evoked a fine menacing-dreamy atmosphere reminiscent of Debussy and Bartók. The Divertimento for strings by Bartók himself was the worthy final touch. From the very first bars, with subtle delays, a sophisticated dynamic profile and delightful details, the group left almost all performances by orchestras with conductors behind. Joep Stapel, NRC, 2 April 2019.
DE VOLKSKRANT: Pianist Beatrice Rana's delicate playing, combined with sounds of nature, forces a concentration that silences. Pianist by night, globe trotter by day. Full-time dreamer. That's how Beatrice Rana (26) defines herself on Twitter. Since her Dutch debut over a year ago, a lot has happened to the keyboard prodigy from Lecce, southern Italy. She has played at Carnegie Hall, at Teatro Colón, and, most impressively for her, at Teatro alla Scala in Milan. From reviews of the globetrotter's playing, by now you can fold a long, festive garland. At the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, you can see her on her back. The lid of the grand piano has been removed. In a semi-circle around her stand the strings of Amsterdam Sinfonietta, ready to return to the composer with whom her globetrotting began: Johann Sebastian Bach. As firm as her vision of the form of his Concert BWV 1052 is, she fills it in smoothly - as if thinking in an endless array of possibilities from which she chooses on the spot. Lovely, how you can hear motifs shuttling back and forth between piano and orchestra. Nice, too, how small shadows of sound in the orchestra are echoed by the piano, but afterwards it is mainly the all-encompassing arc of thought that stays with you. Night music, the theme of the evening, can be heard in the slow movement of the same name from Bartók's piano cycle Out of doors. You can hear leaves rustling in a nocturnal forest, a breaking branch, creatures scurrying away startled. Rana's delicate play with those unpredictable sounds of nature enforces a concentration that silences. The other Night Music on the programme, Mathilde Wantenaar's, also makes one quiet. Wantenaar, the same age as Beatrice Rana, adapted her award-winning 2017 Octet into a version for string ensemble, with high strings floating in the air like dust particles for as long as possible, but eventually being sucked down to earth. Even more strongly than in the Octet, you then feel the cellos and the warm pizzicato of the double basses working together to initiate a dance. Too bad, that magical atmosphere is not continued after the interval. Battalia, the narration of a battle by Baroque composer Heinrich Biber, overflows with excellently executed special effects - chattering bass strings, stomping musicians' feet - but mostly works as a sobering awakening from Wantenaar and Rana's dreamy nights. Even Bartók's brilliant Divertimento for strings cannot bring back the charged concentration of the beginning of the evening. Biëlla Luttmer, De Volkskrant, 1 April 2019.