Prelude à une nuit américaine

11'

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

Rotterdam Philharmonc Orchestra, conducted by André de Ridder.

 

11 October 2019, De Doelen Rotterdam

Prélude à une nuit américaine. It already sounds like a story. "The title is the first note of your composition," a friend of composer Mathilde Wantenaar once said. And there is something in that. Only... Wantenaar finds it a "disaster" to come up with titles and usually does so retrospectively and associatively. "The piece has a nocturnal atmosphere, but also the grand romantic gesture in it and also something dance-like." Moreover, according to Wantenaar, "something American did creep in in certain harmonic and rhythmic bits. I didn't necessarily want to put something American in it, but when I know what the programme is that frames my work, I always make a playlist with that kind of music to get into the mood." Now, Wantenaar has by no means written work that touches on minimalism. For that, she is too much of a colourful storyteller in notes. And too much a composer exploring her connection with the past in every possible way. Although the title of Prélude à une nuit américaine, commissioned by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, suggests something American, the point of departure is primarily Wantenaar herself. In 2015, she contributed a short piece to a composer happening to mark the 10th anniversary of the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. Hidden, performed by Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Cappella Amsterdam starring the harp and vibraphone, stuck with her as a piece that had more to it. "It starts very thin, gets bigger, grows towards a romantic gesture and a big climax. Moreover, the harmony had something pleasantly wrenching. It starts diatonic and then becomes much more chromatic. The piece then takes on something swelling, swinging, wanting to go somewhere." That little piece became the framework for her Prélude for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. She wrote a new introduction "to get into the mood" and then the earlier material appears, moving from diatonic to chromatic. After two climaxes in which Wantenaar indeed does not shy away from the grand romantic gesture - "if you get to write for a big orchestra, you have to use it too" - the work opens up in "a great warm golden sea of sound". Finally, after a festive ending, only the harp remains as a resonance of what was.

UTAH ARTS REVIEW: Poschner brings variety and vitality to Utah Symphony program. Poschner’s enchanting interpretation of the Wantenaar employed a level of subtlety and sensitivity rarely heard in performances of new works. Wantenaar wrote the piece in 2019, when she was 26, on a commission from the Rotterdam Philharmonic. It has a misty, atmospheric quality like the Debussy piece referenced in its title, but with more of a sense of drama and pathos. Wantenaar’s Prelude also has a more advanced harmonic language than Debussy’s, flirting with 12-tone serialism in a post-modern way, while keeping a sense of harmonic tension and resolution. Wantenaar’s main theme, repeated more than once, features primordial rumbling in the timpani and low strings which grows into scales and arpeggios throughout the orchestra, building to a climax and then dissipating into a gentle melody on solo trumpet or violin. With clear, conscientious phrasing that made use of every note, Poschner infused the piece with a sense of forward-moving tension, pulling back just enough to give its still, delicate moments a chance to breathe. Rick Mortensen, 18 November 2023.

 

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NRC: Mathilde Wantenaar outshines Steve Reich. 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. In the Prélude, based on an earlier work by Wantenaar himself, the past resonated: lush late-Romantic harmonies, mahlerian melodies, snippets of Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. But the simultaneity of all kinds of musical worlds and the clever mastery created something very unique. Through several climaxes, the piece worked elegantly towards a finale in which you might recognise Bruckner: a drawn-out, harmonically static crescendo, which, from delightful fairy tunes for celesta, harp and violin flageolets, gradually took hold of the entire orchestra. Joep Stapel, NRC, 14 October 2019.

 

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DE VOLKSKRANT: Violinist Leila Josefowicz makes a great impression with her sometimes menacing but mostly spring-like tone. The work dates from 1993, the birth year of Mathilde Wantenaar, who has long outgrown the designation of 'talent'. The evening opened with her Prélude à une nuit américaine. If you want to see anything American in the notes at all, you see it through a French lens from around 1910. Where Wantenaar does take an unexpected turn in most of her pieces, here the impressionistic pastiche meter does hit very high. The piece is built from the harp, the sound eruption is fine. Merlijn Kerkhof, De Volkskrant, 14 October 2019.