One hour before the start of the concert, Bart de Graaf will give an introduction (in Dutch) to the programme, admission €7,50. Tickets are available at the hall, payment by debit card. The introduction is free for Vrienden.
Cover: New York, view of Liberty Island. Photo Reno Laithienne (Unsplash)
Béla Bartók and Ditta Pásztory Bartók in 1941: Photo Ernest Nash, coll. University of Washington
Blaník. Omslagillustratie door Antonín König voor de eerste uitgave van Smetana’s partituur (1894) Richard-Strauss-Institut
PROGRAMME
conductor Lahav Shani piano Martha Argerich
Joey Roukens (1982)
Con spirito, Overture for orchestra (2024) Commissioned work, world premiere
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945)
• Allegretto
• Adagio religioso
• Allegro vivace
intermission
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, ‘From the New World’ (1893)
• Adagio. Allegro molto
• Largo
• Scherzo. Molto vivace
• Allegro con fuoco
Concert ends at around 22.20/16.20
Most recent performances by our orchestra: Roukens Con spirito: world premiere
Bartók Piano Concerto No. 3: Oct 2023, piano Kirill Gerstein, conductor Lahav Shani (on tour)
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9: Oct 2021, conductor Edo de Waart
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: playbill for the theatre show Dvořák attended in the spring of 1893. Coll. Buffalo Bill Museum
American Dream, European reality
America has captured the imagination of many European composers. Dvořák discovered the spirituals that inspired his Ninth Symphony. Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is infused with the echoes of American birdsong. And although Roukens composed his work Con spirito in the Netherlands, this brand-new orchestral work radiates an optimism that seems typically American.
Hall of mirrors
Joey Roukens is a fan of composers including Sweelinck, Stravinsky, Sibelius, and John Adams. As well as the Beach Boys, Keith Jarrett and techno, not to mention the kind of music his colleagues tend to look down on, such as film music or Jacques Offenbach. In short, Roukens has an extremely eclectic taste, which is reflected in the metropolitan, Americantinted music with strong European roots with which he attracts a wide public. Following the success of his Symphony No. 1 from 2021, Roukens composed Con spirito for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, parts of which take him into new territory. ‘Contemporary composers have forgotten how to write cheerful, energetic music,’ he explains. ‘Haydn, Weber and Poulenc were great exponents, but these days few dare head in this direction. It must be part of the legacy of post-war modernism: music had to be serious and complex. But I want to give it a try: a piece that is cheerful without being bland or superficial.’
Energetic rhythms have always been an element of Roukens’s palette, but never before has he sought such a crazy atmosphere, ‘Like a hall of mirrors at a funfair, full of deformed reflections’. The greatest challenge? How do you keep it playful whilst aiming to deploy the full ranks of the orchestra?
One-way ticket to New York
It would take a lot for Béla Bartók to turn his back on his beloved Hungary, but by 1939 the time had come. For decades he had cherished the folk music of his native country and bordering nations. He based all his compositions on such music. But this love was not mutual. Bartók had been reviled in his own country: too modern, and he ‘cosied up’ with other cultures. So when the country then aligned itself with the Nazis, he emigrated to New York, where he hoped to build a new life as a pianist and ethnomusicologist. It turned out to be a fiasco. America was not interested in his deep knowledge of Balkan music or his idiosyncratic compositions. Worse still, he suffered mysterious symptoms that would be diagnosed – too late – as leukaemia. This was the backdrop against which Bartók composed his Third Piano Concerto – a remarkably gentle piece given his harsh living conditions. A contributing factor was the sudden success of his recently composed Concerto for Orchestra, with which he finally achieved recognition in America. Furthermore, the almost neo-classical form of this work did not come out of the blue; even Bartók’s most modern works have a classical or even Baroque structure. Bartók’s hints of Balkan music are strongest in the outer movements.
But the focus lies in the middle movement that the atheist Bartók strikingly marked as ‘Adagio religioso’. This is a subtle reference to the Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenden an die Gottheit (‘Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity) from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, opus 132, the melody from which is briefly quoted. Logically, Bartók brightened up with each improvement of his physical condition, however temporary in nature. And here, the ‘sounds of the night’ – a fixed element in his work - sound consoling rather than troubling, springing this time not from Bartók’s poignant imagination but from the birdsong that he had transcribed from his most recent summer vacation.
Return trip to New York
The contrast could not be greater: Antonin Dvořák, the one-time provincial composer from the periphery of the European music world, had grown into an international star who would cement his reputation in New York. At least, that’s why in 1892 music-school head Jeanette Thurber invited Dvořák to assist young American composers develop their national identity. After all, back home in what is now Czechia, he had demonstrated the alchemy of turning folk music into ‘high art’. For Dvořák, New York was a revelation. He wrote enthusiastically to those back home about the ‘Indian music’ he had heard at a theatre show. He was even more impressed by black music; he believed that gospel music and spirituals could form the basis of a ‘great and worthy American school’.
Ultimately, in America Dvořák was as much a student as he was a teacher; the folk music that he was introduced to coloured a number of his own compositions form that period, principally his Ninth Symphony. However, the American influence did not go too deep; the form, sounds and musical phrasing of the Ninth remained very
European. For example, the work begins with a pianissimo introduction, followed by a robust theme and a tender response which, since Beethoven, has been a typical opening in the European romantic style. What Dvořák did suddenly make frequent use of is the pentatonic scale (in other words, the black keys on a piano) that he picked up in America. It is something that appears in traditional music around the world, but for him it was something new.
Nowhere does Dvořák directly quote existing folk tunes, even though it sometimes sounds like he does. A good example of this is in the Second Movement, in which the oboe plays a gospel-sounding melody. Dvořák’s student, William Fisher, worked the melody into a song called Going Home, that became a favourite in the churches of black America.
Dvořák wrote enthusiastically to those back home about the ‘Indian music’ he had heard at a theatre show
The Third Movement is also a hybrid: the fast introductory theme is again a kind of Beethoven-esque clarion call, although Dvořák himself wrote that he composed this movement in response to reading about a ‘wild Indian dance’. Ironically, when the symphony was subsequently performed ‘back home’ in Prague, his compatriots thought that this movement sounded the most Czech. The almost Tchaikovsky-like, melancholy Fourth Movement also sounds Slavic. In this movement, you hear how Dvořák, despite all his wonderful impressions of America, was tormented by homesickness.
Michiel Cleij
Lahav Shani • chief conductor
Born: Tel Aviv, Israel
Current position: chief conductor Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra; music director Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; chief conductor designate Münchner Philharmoniker (from 2026)
Before: principal guest conductor Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Education: piano at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music Tel Aviv; conducting and piano at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin; mentor: Daniel Barenboim
Breakthrough: 2013, First Prize Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in Bamberg
Subsequently: guest appearances Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhaus Orchester, Münchner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2016
Martha Argerich • Piano
Born: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Education: with Friedrich Gulda in Austria; Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Stefan Askenase
Awards: Geneva International Music Competition (1957); Ferruccio Busoni
International Piano Competition Bolzano (1957); Praemium Imperiale Award (2005), Kennedy Center Honor (2016)
Breakthrough: 1965, after winning the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition Warsaw
Subsequently: soloist with all major orchestras in the world
Chamber Music: with pianists Stephen Kovacevich, Alexandre Rabinovich, the late Nelson Freire and Nicolas Economou, violinist Gidon Kremer, cellist Mischa Maisky
Festival: honorary president International Piano Academy Lake Como
Documentary: Martha Argerich – Evening Talk 2002
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 1969
Photo: Marco Borggreve
Photo: Nicolas Broadard
Musicians Agenda
Thu 3 October 2024 • 20.15
conductor Joana Mallwitz
piano Leif Ove Andsnes
Prokofiev Overture War and Peace
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3
Hindemith Symphonie Mathis der Maler
Ravel La valse
Fri 11 October 2024 • 20.15
conductor John Adams
vocalists Royal Conservatoire The Hague
Andriessen De Staat
Adams Harmonielehre
Thu 17 October 2024 • 20.15
Fri 18 oktober 2024 • 20.15
Sun 20 oktober 2024 • 14.15
conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3
Rimski-Korsakov Sheherazade
Fri 1 November 2024 • 20.15
Sun 3 November 2024 • 14.15
conductor Stéphane Denève
piano Marie-Ange Nguci
Boulanger D’un matin de printemps
Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2
Ravel/Visman Gaspard de la nuit (world premiere)
Stravinsky The Firebird (Suite 1919)
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Chief Conductor
Lahav Shani
Honorary Conductor
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Principal Guest Conductor
Tarmo Peltokoski
First Violin
Marieke Blankestijn, concertmeester
Quirine Scheffers
Hed Yaron Meyerson
Saskia Otto
Arno Bons
Rachel Browne
Maria Dingjan
Marie-José Schrijner
Noëmi Bodden
Petra Visser
Sophia Torrenga
Hadewijch Hofland
Annerien Stuker
Alexandra van Beveren
Marie Duquesnoy
Second Violin
Charlotte Potgieter
Frank de Groot
Laurens van Vliet
Elina Staphorsius
Jun Yi Dou
Bob Bruyn
Eefje Habraken
Maija Reinikainen
Babette van den Berg
Melanie Broers
Tobias Staub
Sarah Decamps
Viola
Anne Huser
Roman Spitzer
Galahad Samson
José Moura Nunes
Kerstin Bonk
Janine Baller
Francis Saunders
Veronika Lénártová
Rosalinde Kluck
León van den Berg
Olfje van der Klein
Jan Navarro
Cello
Emanuele Silvestri
Joanna Pachucka
Daniel Petrovitsch
Mario Rio
Eelco Beinema
Carla Schrijner
Pepijn Meeuws
Yi-Ting Fang
Double Bass
Matthew Midgley
Ying Lai Green
Jonathan Focquaert
Robert Franenberg
Harke Wiersma
Arjen Leendertz
Ricardo Neto
Javier Clemen Martínez
Flute
Juliette Hurel
Joséphine Olech
Manon Gayet
Flute/Piccolo
Beatriz Da Baião
Oboe
Karel Schoofs
Anja van der Maten
Oboe/Cor Anglais
Ron Tijhuis
Clarinet
Julien Hervé
Bruno Bonansea
Alberto Sánchez García
Clarinet/ Bass Clarinet
Romke-Jan Wijmenga
Bassoon
Pieter Nuytten
Lola Descours
Marianne Prommel
Bassoon/ Contrabassoon
Hans Wisse
Horn
David Fernández Alonso
Felipe Freitas
Wendy Leliveld
Richard Speetjens
Laurens Otto
Pierre Buizer
Trumpet
Alex Elia
Simon Wierenga
Jos Verspagen
Trombone
Pierre Volders
Alexander Verbeek
Remko de Jager
Bass Trombone
Rommert Groenhof
Tuba
Hendrik-Jan Renes
Percussion
Danny van de Wal
Ronald Ent
Martijn Boom
Adriaan Feyaerts
Harp
Charlotte Sprenkels
