The Song of Koios

TROUW: In ‘The Song of Koios’, Darwin, Curie and Einstein all make an appearance

The more time passes, the greater the chance that someone will uncover something that might have been better left hidden. During the world premiere in Utrecht of Mathilde Wantenaar’s ‘The Song of Koios’, the Netherlands Chamber Choir sings Shelley’s poem ‘Time’.

In it, the English Romantic poet describes time as a destructive force. The poem can be seen as a prelude to the entire oratorio, which revolves around the discoveries of Darwin, Curie and Einstein, who did not merely propel the world forward.

There is a dreamlike beauty in the way Wantenaar sets the poem to music. Whilst the Netherlands Chamber Choir concentrates on the text, much is happening in the instrumental ensemble. Shelley invokes the sea as a metaphor for the passing of time. And in Wantenaar’s work, we hear this reflected in the vibraphone, which evokes both the trickling water and the ticking of time. The strings transport us to an English atmosphere with long-held chords, so much so that the meandering solo violin would not be out of place in a work by Vaughan Williams. Conductor Florian Helgath makes all this sound remarkably solid. He keeps the complex structure firmly under control.

Bridge to Darwin

The sea is like a bridge to Charles Darwin. The choir sings of the ship The Beagle, on which he made the voyage that formed the basis for his theory of evolution. At one point, the ship seems to float on the line: ‘I carry secrets of evolution home’. Darwin shares his knowledge at home with his family. Accompanied by captivating sounds, he watches the bees with his children.

In the oratorio, the charm of his family life contrasts with the grim reality of eugenics. Many years later, his son Leonard strives to ‘improve’ the human genetic makeup. When he speaks about this at a conference, the singing begins like a waltz, which grows more intense as drum accompaniment is added.

The mood shifts during the section on radium discoverer Marie Curie. Whilst we hear jazzy influences in the orchestra, with pizzicato on the double bass, the choir sings playfully, snapping their fingers, about the Radium Girls. It is a false cheerfulness. With fine brushes, they painted radioactive, luminous hands onto clocks. Day in, day out: licking, dipping and painting. All these women fell ill and died young. It therefore feels somewhat uncomfortable when the concertgoers burst into laughter as the choir sings ‘radioactive’ in a grand downward glissando.

The trilogy concludes with Albert Einstein. His theory ultimately led to the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Throughout the oratorio, Willem Bruls’ libretto highlights interesting facets of science. But with Einstein, the sheer volume of facts creates a certain monotony. Fortunately, the children’s letters to him provide a breather. There we also find a link to Koios, the mythical figure of curiosity.For ultimately, everything begins with asking innocent questions.

Hugo Jager, Trouw, 27 April 2026

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NRC: Parrots and Einstein at theSnaar Festival, where classical music and science come together

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Five years ago, Mathilde Wantenaar composed 'The Song of Koios' based on letters that children had written to Albert Einstein. For the festival’s closing event, she expanded that work to include sections on Darwin and Madame Curie, for the Netherlands Chamber Choir and a small ensemble of strings and percussion, conducted by Florian Helgath, the incoming chief conductor of the Groot Omroepkoor.

Radium Girls

The central theme of the trilogy was the perversion of scientific discoveries into something highly harmful – think of the atomic bomb. For instance, Darwin’s theory of evolution paved the way for eugenics, whilst he himself wrote very tenderly about his youngest son, who had Down’s syndrome.

Dead children were a recurring motif in the triptych, the panels of which were very different. A documentary-style approach with a lot of text made the opening section on Darwin somewhat tedious at first. Wantenaar illustrated the creeping eeriness of scientific megalomania with a wry little march or a meandering chromatic bass line. The stark contrast with the tender music of Darwin’s inner monologue ultimately did not fail to have its effect.

In the section on Madame Curie, the ‘Radium Girls’ had their say; they worked in the factory making luminous watches using the new element discovered by Curie, without realising that they were poisoning themselves in the process. The cheerful, snappy swing with close-harmony choruses gradually took on a melancholic undertone. That undertone came to the fore in the beautiful section about Einstein: grand, humming vocal chords, subtly supported by the strings and the smooth vibraphone tones of Ramon Lomans.

Joep Stapel, NRC, 27 April 2026

Mathilde Wantenaar | Composer

The Song of Koios

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