‘Young composer Mathilde Wantenaar impressed with a short work for the Groot Omroepkoor. Her precise music enhanced the eloquence of Gorter's poem.
[...]
The poem comes 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 weken, Wantenaar has delivered a near-perfect work.’
