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.
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Mathilde Wantenaar | Composer
Steve Reich and John Adams originally made their breakthrough with high-energy music full of shifting near-repetitions. They are still called minimalists, even though that name is no longer applicable – just listen to Adams’s Violin Concerto with its endless melodies. So we should not attempt to classify the brilliant and versatile Mathilde Wantenaar: tomorrow she will already have outgrown that classification.
conductor André de Ridder | violin Leila Josefowicz
Wantenaar Prélude à une nuit américaine (commission work, world premiere)
Adams Violin Concerto No. 1
Adams The Chairman Dances
Reich Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (Dutch premiere)
Fri 11 Oct 2019, 20:15
De Doelen, Rotterdam
Sat 12 Oct 2019, 20:15
TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht
Being creative on demand? That's impossible, you would think. Yet it is the reality for composers and artists who work on commission. Mathilde Wantenaar (1993) therefore got acute choice stress when the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra asked her for a new piece. She was just working on a commission from De Nationale Opera. 'I felt like a rabbit in the headlights, totally paralysed. But I just couldn't turn down such a beautiful offer.' On 11 October, Prélude à une nuit américaine will premiere in Rotterdam, a day later it will be heard in the AVROTROSVrijdagconcert in Utrecht.
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