**** 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.

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra premieres Meander

Photo: © Guido Pijper

The last work of Rachmaninoff, the unbearable lightness of Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto and the enchanting world of Mathilde Wantenaar. The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra brings it together effortlessly.

New work by Wantenaar: Meander

Mathilde Wantenaar felt she wanted to write something that would flow. She ended up with the river. What fascinates her about it is the large more or less constant shape that meanders but shifts very slowly, while the water in the river flows endlessly. 'I felt inspired by the gradually increasing power of the current that eventually bursts in the meander breakthrough. That became the shape of the piece.'

Rachmaninoff's resounding biography

With his 1940 Symphonic Dances, Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote not only a resounding biography, but also a final work as anxious as it is carefree. Dies irae stands alongside jazz influences, quotations from his own work resound alongside wonderful new orchestrations. Mathilde Wantenaar's new work Meander is the perfect introduction to this wonderful work by the tormented Russian.

Shostakovich's jazzy swing

Dmitri Shostakovich also follows milder and more nimble paths than we are used to from the composer in his 1957 Second piano concerto. Only in the masterful Andante does he strike a more serious tone. Shostakovich composed the work as a graduation project for his son, who played it during his final piano exam. Especially the corner movements, which seem to be written for the piano phenomenon Yuja Wang, require.

Concerts

30 September, 20:15, De Doelen, Rotterdam

1 October, 20:15, De Doelen, Rotterdam

2 October, 14:15, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

3 October, 14:15, De Doelen, Rotterdam

Nachtzoen

Composer Mathilde Wantenaar made a family opera of A song for the moon by Toon Tellegen. She crawled into the world of a little animal that knows the deep darkness of life like no other.

The presentation was in the hands of Marleen Stelling. This broadcast of the programme De Nachtzoen with the title Mathilde Wantenaar was broadcast on Tuesday 22 June by IKON.

The broadcast can be viewed at www.npostart.nl/de-nachtzoen