Violin concerto

35'

NTR ZaterdagMatinee, Supported by Stichting Vrienden van de Matinee

Simone Lamsma and Het Radio Filharmonisch Orkest conducted byKarina Canellakis.

24 September 2022, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

The opening theme of the first movement is a slow, flowing, quite sultry melody that has something very sweet and at the same time threatening. At first, only open fifths sound in the orchestral accompaniment. These have a stable sound, but
also open and wide, and very quiet. The soloist is then the only one touching the third, which gives opportunities to colour everything differently by playing with major and minor. As a contrast, the second melody sounds light and dance-like, perhaps also a little naive. These two themes form the core of the whole work. Initially, I wanted to develop the first theme towards a dark climax, because of the twistedness in it. I eventually came up with something to break this pattern of expectation. On the contrary, the climax of the first movement has now become very warm, but after the solo cadenza, the energy drains away completely. The second movement is extremely static. In the beginning, the solo violin is hidden in a warm brass chord. The solo part sounds distant, introverted and emotionless. The sounds of the soloist slide over or emerge from those of the brass. A string quartet emerges, providing an intimate sound. Up to three times, the slowly descending and sad melody repeats itself, after which we are back to square one. That the third movement became the longest is because I had so much fun working on it. Now there is a leading role for the dancing second theme from the opening movement. It is like waking up from the haze of melancholy we were in. The soloist plays very freely. After this fresh start, threat arises for a moment when the melancholy first theme also briefly returns, but then the violin breaks in and the tempo picks up. The entire orchestra comes alive. Everyone starts singing and dancing, as it were, in an unpretentious mood. The imagination runs wild and the roof goes off.

NRC: New violin concerto by Mathilde Wantenaar is already beautiful and will mature even further.

 

The NTR ZaterdagMatinee on Saturday afternoon premiered the First Violin Concerto vanin, written for and played by violinist Simone Lamsma Side note: Wantenaar left the orchestration of the first and third movements to composer Tijmen van Tol out of time constraints. Beautiful and fairytale-like is Wantenaar's music, with enough harps and chimes to imagine yourself in a rosy world, but too little to become kitschy Low notes are so rare that they stand out when they sound briefly. The first movement (lento, 'slow') seems a reverie to a beautiful past, with here the vague outlines of a Gershwin-era New York, and there a fantasy about one of the millennial nights Conductor Karina Canellakis sends beautiful dynamic waves through the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra , though the strings sometimes react a little tame to so many beautiful memories. Anti-virtuoso Violinist Simone Lamsma, for whom the violin concerto was written, wanted to be "put to work" by Wantenaar But Wantenaar does not do that with lots of virtuoso passages with quick notes and complicated jumps Not at all Most of it could be called downright anti-virtuoso Slow melodies should be played by Lamsma; long lines, at the slowest point even one note of nine slow strokes long. Even in the cadenza (the solo, flowing from Bach suite-like towards Eastern European emotional) where Lamsma has to play so high that she almost touches her baton, it still has to be relatively slow That brings a whole different level of difficulty: hitting intonation, colouring, building and releasing tension. Lamsma brings it off well, but you also notice that this anti-virtuosity is exciting territory Not everywhere is she equally sure what to do with it Blending into the orchestra or telling her own story Sometimes she seems to lack her own conviction. Nice things The first two movements are most exciting in their slowness The third, more cheerfully fluttering movement succeeds a little less as a unit It is more like a motley collection of 'fun things' all sounding in turn A few notes of muted trumpet, contrabassoon, a big drum, briefly some bells, a piece of vibraphone, then suddenly a Russian-looking tutti; before you know it you forget to pay attention to the solo violinist, even now that that part is more virtuosic. The violin concerto is already beautiful, but the impression remains that there is still something left to mature that we will taste in subsequent performances Who knows then, perhaps in a full orchestration by Mathilde Wantenaar herself.

 

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BASIA CON FUOCO: Worlds of sounds. Van van Veldhuizen en Mahler en van Wantenaar en Bruckner in het Concertgebouw.

 

Like Rick van Veldhuizen, Mathilde Wantenaar opted for a wonderful world of sound, especially in the first movement, a Lento. After an initial shrouded major chord in the orchestra, the piece opens with a descending four-note motif on the violin, in a Phrygian-minor-like church tone type. That motif will be repeated several times, a beautifully archaic lamento theme that forces the timid major mood of the opening notes into melancholic-minor. Lush subdued orchestral sounds follow, to which the violin repeatedly gives a turn towards sober resignation. The Lento movement ends with a long lilting cadenza in the highest registers, partly in thin flageolet tones. The second movement is also rather slow. In it, the composer opted for a more traditional tonal idiom, though these do contrast with moments of excitingly diffuse harmony, and the movement also ends quietly with the Frygian-like motif on the violin with which the concerto opened. Only the third movement is fast, with many dance rhythms, and again breakneck parts for the solo violin. Simone Lamsma seems to have said to the composer write down anything you want, I'll play it anyway. And that happened. Associations with Sibelius, Szymanovski and De Falla sometimes loom large, and in that order the composers actually also reflect the structure of this violin concerto.

 

Neil van der Linden, Basia con Fuoco, 2022.