Meander

11'

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Lahav Shani.

 

30 September 2021, De Doelen, Rotterdam

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.

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.

 

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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.