Premier at Strijkkwartet Biënnale on Radio 4

Photo: © Meinke Klein

With pain in their hearts, the organisers of the String Quartet Biennale decided to cancel the 2022 edition. Uncertainty about the measures that would apply during the biennale made it impossible to prepare an alternative scenario. Especially for the Evening Concert, however, the organisation did put together two wonderful programmes in which top string quartets and musicians from the up-and-coming generation can still be heard.

On 30 January, several string quartets will play at the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. In the afternoon, recordings will take place that can be heard in the Evening Concert on 6 February. And in the evening, several string quartets will play live. So there is still a chance for all string quartet fans to enjoy the beauty the Biennale has to offer. And for your diary: the 2024 String Quartet Biennale will take place from 27 January to 3 February.

Programme

Belinfante Quartet

Mathilde Wantenaar - movement from String Quartet no.1

Cuarteto Casals

Joseph Haydn - String quartet op.20/3

Felix Mendelssohn - String Quartet no.33, op.44

Borusan Quartet

Fanny Mendelssohn - String Quartet

Fazil Say - Divorce

Karski Quartet

Grazyna Bacewicz - String Quartet No.4 - Part I

This broadcast is scheduled for 30 January 2022 from 20:00 to 23:00 and will be available around 23:30. Listen to it here on Radio 4

Podcast 'De componistenkamer'

The Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, the Casa Puccini in Lucca: spaces where the heart beats faster because the composer wrote his works there. Some in dire poverty, others in reasonable opulence but all struggling, violently in love or unjustly abandoned, smoking, drinking, with ambition and sometimes suffering from syphilis. That was then! Melchior Huurdeman (VPRO Vrije Geluiden) explores in the NPO Radio 4 podcast series De componistenkamer how the composer anno nowadays does his work.

What is the composer's room like these days? And what goes on there? How inspiring should and should not the room be? Should the pencil always be in the same place? And why does one composer get so much inspiration from a bin of stones and another glorifies the view? The latter muses a bit and thus sets the creative process in motion.

Episode 11 of De componistenkamer

Mathilde Wantenaar looks out over Amsterdam, the city where she was born 28 years ago. This is also where she studied at the conservatory, with composers Willem Jeths and Wim Henderickx. The road to her latest orchestral work ‘Meander’ for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra was not an easy one. She talks candidly about the struggles during Corona that many musicians and composers will recognise. Together with her boyfriend, she lives in 1 room. In the same attic flat, she also composes. There is a piano, a cello, a guitar, a computer and a knitting machine.

Mathilde Wantenaar's music has been described as lyrical, enchanting and eclectic yet authentic. The combination of her craftsmanship and openness to a wide range of genres make Wantenaar a versatile composer.

She has since written pieces for the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Groot Omroepkoor, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. A month ago, her composition ‘Meander’ premiered at the Matinee. It was a commissioned work by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Listen here to episode #11 of the podcast De Componistenkamer on Radio4

**** review NRC: Mathilde Wantenaar's new orchestral work ‘Meander’ intrigued

Pianist Yuja Wang, ‘artist in residence’ with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, played Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto with gurgling virtuosity. Mathilde Wantenaar's new orchestral work ‘Meander’ intrigued. [...]

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’. [...]

Read Jason Hillebrand's full article in the NRC here.