Piano music by Mozart and Hartmann

History has known many musical families in which the profession of composer and performing musician have been passed on from one generation to the next. The most famous example is the Bach dynasty in Germany, with various branches in the family tree. In Vienna, the bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries had the waltzes, polkas and marches of the Strauss family to rely on. Likewise in Austria, it was Leopold Mozart (1719-1787) who taught his son Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) the tricks of the trade. However, it was always the men who took the credit. Many female musicians had to give up their careers in favour of male members of the family and faded into oblivion. For example, Wolfgang’s sister Maria Anna (Nannerl) was also an exceptionally gifted pianist and violinist.

Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus composed for the piano throughout his life. His catalogue of works includes 23 piano concertos, chamber music (trios, quintets and sonatas with the violin) and various compositions for solo piano, including variations, fantasias and sonatas. Mozart composed a total of 18 solo sonatas. His first piano sonata dates from early 1775 and the last from 1789. Thomas Waelbroeck will play Sonata No. 2 in F major, KV 280. It is one of the six early sonatas that Mozart composed in Munich in 1775. The young composer was staying in the Bavarian city for the performance of his opera La finta giardiniera. The six sonatas were never published together, but there are indications that that was Mozart’s intention. Because each sonata is in a different key, they create a balanced harmonic arc (C, F, B flat, E flat, G and D). It was customary at the time for composers to write a cycle that got increasingly difficult with each sonata, starting simply and ending with a virtuoso piece. Sonatas KV279-284 do indeed follow this pattern – which is not to say that KV 279 is a ‘sonata for dummies’. Incidentally, Mozart called the cycle ‘the six difficult sonatas’. Like the others, sonata KV 280 has three movements; strikingly, all three are in a triple metre. The opening movement, Allegro assai, has the character of a lively minuet. The second movement, Adagio, is a lyrical siciliana in a minor key (F minor) and many consider it to be one of the most beautiful movements in the group. The closing Presto is rich in contrasts and recalls the lively character of the first movement.

Hartmann
Waelbroeck will surround the sonata by Mozart with two works by August Wilhelm Hartmann: Rondo non troppo and Thème varié pour le pianoforte. Hartmann (1775-1850) was the scion of a family of Danish musicians with German roots. He was taught by his father, Johann Ernst (1726-1793), who had moved to Copenhagen in 1766 and started out as a violinist at the royal court chapel before being promoted to Kapellmeister two years later. August Wilhelm was a violinist like his father, and had the opportunity to occupy various leading positions in the Danish capital. For example, he was a member of the royal court chapel (1796-1817) and choirmaster at the Citadel Church (1817-1824). His son, Johann Peter Emilius (1805-1900) made a career for himself as an organist and composer, and was also the director of Copenhagen conservatory.

Stylistically, the works for piano that Thomas Waelbroeck has selected are close to the style of Haydn and Mozart, although they were composed in about 1815. It thus seems likely that Hartmann was unaware of the recent developments in music and did not know of Beethoven’s works for piano. The tonal range of Hartmann’s works are comparable to those of the Viennese classical period. They are written for a five-octave fortepiano, whereas Beethoven was composing for six-octave instruments at that time. In music history, most attention is paid to ‘revolutionary’ composers, leaving the minor masters in the shadows. Hartmann’s compositions may not be pioneering, but they are lovely works that bear witness for his mastery of the craft. The Rondo non troppo, the third part of a more extensive piano sonata, has a typical ABACA structure. In the C part, a few striking modulations can be heard before the piece returns to the main key, C minor. In Thème varié pour le pianoforte, Hartmann remains in the same key for each of the seven variations, instead playing with the metre, rhythm or texture.

An interesting note is that Thomas Waelbroeck is a descendant of the Hartmann family himself, and his grandfather donated a collection of scores to the Royal Library of Copenhagen.

This project was made possible by the donations of many music lovers to AMUZ’ ‘Support Fund for Young Belgian Artists’.

Programme
August Wilhelm Hartmann (1775 – 1850)
Rondo non troppo in C minor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Piano Sonata No. 2 in F major, KV 280
I. Allegro assai
II. Adagio
III. Presto

August Wilhelm Hartmann (1775 – 1850)
Thème varié pour le pianoforte in B flat major

Performer
Thomas Waelbroeck, fortepiano

08 May, 2021 10:00

“Some place where there isn’t any trouble… do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It’s not a place where you can get to by a boat or train. It’s far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain.”

Over the Rainbow
Is there a place where there isn’t any trouble? In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy – played by Judy Garland (1922-1969) – sings us an answer: “Somewhere over the rainbow…” Over the Rainbow dates from 1939, becoming one of the most famous songs in movie history. The message feels familiar even today. Surely many people have spent the last year longing for a better place. Yip Harburg (1896-1981) wrote the lyrics to Over the Rainbow and Harold Arlen (1905-1986) composed the music. Judy Garland kept the song in her repertoire all her life, and other artists have sung it with varying success. The version by the Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (1959-1997) in 1993 was an absolute hit, and more recently (2017) the American Ariana Grande (°1993) sang the song at a benefit concert in Manchester in a version heard by millions of listeners on various media channels.

The Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu made an adaptation for solo guitar in 1974 that was published a few years later in the collection Twelve Songs for Guitar (1977). Is it because he composed more than a hundred film scores himself that he was able to capture the atmosphere of the original song so poignantly in an instrumental version? At the beginning of his career, Takemitsu distanced himself from his Japanese cultural roots. He was mainly inspired by European composers such as Debussy and Messiaen. From the 1960s onwards, he became increasingly fascinated by Japanese music. That led to a personal idiom emerging: not simply a combination of East and West, but an extremely refined musical vocabulary. “My music is like a garden and I am the gardener”, he explained. “You can compare listening to my music to walking in a garden and experiencing changes in light, pattern and texture.” In his adaptation of Over the Rainbow, you really do hear fragments of the song in constantly varying patterns, in an atmosphere of nostalgia and hazy dreams.

Polish culture
The Hommage à Chopin by Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) reveals another nostalgic gaze. It is a memory of a legendary compatriot, a composer whose relationship status with his homeland certainly qualifies as ‘it’s complicated’. Early in his career, Tansman decided to move to Paris because he did not feel at home in the conservative surroundings of Poland, where he was born. He achieved great success in the avant-garde milieu of the 1920s and 1930s. His aversion to his homeland grew, and furthermore his music was banned in Poland from 1938 onwards because of his Jewish heritage. Tansman gave up his Polish citizenship and became a French national. However, France was not safe in WW2 either. He fled to America, returning to France in 1946. From 1956 onwards, he did establish new links with the country of his birth.

Despite his complex relationship with Poland, Tansman made regular references to Polish culture in his compositions. “We can’t just erase the cultural traditions and the memory of the environment where we grew up”, Tansman explained. “Whether or not my music is known in my home country, I belong to Polish culture. I’m a French citizen, but that doesn’t change my artistic affiliation that has always been manifested in my music.” This was expressed literally in the form of quotations from folk music, or more indirectly through a nostalgic, melancholic character that Tansman perceived in Polish music, or with references to Polish masters such as Chopin. The titles of the three movements in the Hommage à Chopin, – Prelude, Nocturne and Valse Romantique – are also unmistakeable references to Chopin’s work. Tansman succeeds in turning the idiom of Chopin’s piano works into a stylised composition for the guitar.

Italian culture
The life of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) reveals certain striking similarities with that of Tansman. He belonged to a group of avant-garde composers in Italy between the world wars. He was also a successful pianist, critic and essayist. Because of his Jewish heritage, his music was put on the list of prohibited works in 1938. In 1939, he and his family fled to the United States, first to New York and then to California. Like other European Jewish composers, he found work in the legendary Hollywood film studios. Castelnuovo-Tedesco contributed to no fewer than 250 film projects. He fulfilled various commissions, from arrangements of existing music to writing entire scores. In many cases his work was never acknowledged. He was also known as an excellent teacher, with pupils including Henry Mancini and John Williams, who are now legendary composers in their own right. Castelnuovo-Tedesco also wrote operas and chamber music, such as the Tre Preludi Mediterranei (1955). This work for solo guitar is an example of his neoclassical period, in which he refers to traditional forms and Italian culture and history. However he claimed that he “never believed in modernism or neoclassicism or any ism at all.” He believed that above all, music should be expressive. That is the least we can say of his ‘three preludes’. Each movement has its own character: the lovely Serenatella, heartfelt Nenia (lament), and exuberant Danza.

This project was made possible by the donations of many music lovers to AMUZ’ ‘Support Fund for Young Belgian artists’.

Programme
Alexandre Tansman
Hommage à Chopin (1966)
I. Prelude
II. Nocturne
III. Valse romantique

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Tre preludi mediterranei (1955)
I. Serenatella
II. Nenia
III. Danza

Harold Arlen / Toru Takemitsu
Over the rainbow (1977)

Performer
Matthias Vancutsem, guitar

22 May, 2021 10:00

Breaking the Routine

The series of concerts associated with the Support Fund for Young Belgian Artists will conclude with a video concert featuring the recorder in the main role. The recorder player Lieve de Sadeleer will perform work from the Baroque and a composition of her own, demonstrating that the recorder is an extremely versatile instrument. Giulio Quirici accompanies her in the historical repertoire by Jacob van Eyck and Louis Detri.

Jacob Van Eyck
Bouffons and Laura are two short works from Der fluyten lust-hof, a collection by Jacob Van Eyck (1589/90-1657). The two volumes (1644 and 1646) by the Dutch composer include no fewer than 143 compositions for the solo recorder. Van Eyck was came from an aristocratic family and was born blind. However, he had exceptionally good hearing. “God took from his eye, / But gave back to his ear,” wrote one commentator. In 1623, he moved from his home town of Heusden to Utrecht, where he made a career for himself as a carillon player at the cathedral and various smaller churches. The honorary title “Director of Clockwork in Utrecht” features on several of his publications. His exceptionally accurate perception of overtones enabled Van Eyck to improve the quality of the bells significantly. He was also a talented amateur recorder player who played regularly in the city from 1639 onwards. By way of thanks, the church council offered him a pay rise in 1649, “provided that he sometimes amuses walkers in the cemetery with the sound of his recorder”. The cemetery was already a city park at the time.

Van Eyck did not merely make a sound; he usually improvised on familiar melodies. These improvisations are what he later set down in Der fluyten lust-hof. These works are the culmination of a long tradition of diminutions that dates right back to the Middle Ages. As can be heard in Laura, a melody is introduced and then followed by increasingly complex variations, leading to the illusion of polyphony. In Bouffons, the guitarist Giulio Quirici adds a basso continuo of his own devising to the recorder part.

Signore Detri
The other Baroque work in this programme is the Sonata in C minor by a certain Signore Detri. Little is known about the man’s identity; in fact, the sonata is the only known work by this composer. The manuscript is held by the university library in Rostock, where the music library of Hereditary Prince Frederick of Württemberg (1698-1731) is preserved. The bassoon player Louis Detri, described as “guth und fleissig” (talented and hardworking), worked at the court chapel in Schloss Ludwigsburg from 1727 to 1732. So the sonata is likely to have been written by him; after all, musicians at the time often played more than one instrument.

The Württemberg court followed French fashions for many years, but it broke with this trend in 1717. An Italian Kapellmeister was appointed – Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello (1690-1758) – and most of the repertoire performed was Italian from then on as well. Detri’s Sonata in C minor also follows the Italian patterns for chamber music. It consists of four movements with an alternation of slow and fast tempi (Adagio-Presto-Adagio-Gigue/Presto) and brings out the best in the recorder in many ways. The fast movements require virtuoso dexterity. Conversely, the slow movements seem little short of a vocal opera aria for an instrument.

Lieve de Sadeleer – Breaking the routine
De Sadeleer is both a recorder player and composer. She is exceptionally well versed in the possibilities of her instrument. During her studies at the conservatory, she also learned to decipher the secrets of electronics. Breaking the Routine is a sequel to Routine, an earlier composition in which the music constantly returns to repetitive patterns. Breaking the Routine confronts this system and breaks free from it. In musical terms, the result is an interplay of clicks, stretched lines and crumbling rhythmic structures. The inspiration for her new piece comes from the COVID crisis. We sought peace in nature, but we are now gradually returning to our ordinary lives with all their hustle and bustle. This generates a tension that breaks the routine.

In this piece, De Sadeleer plays the bass, tenor and sopranino recorders. The sounds of these instruments are processed by live electronics, specifically the Ableton Live software program. No samples (pre-recorded fragments of music) are used.
The piece starts with the gentle tapping of the fingers on the finger holes and keys of the recorders. In the first minutes, loopers, delay and beat repeat are used to create a layer of sounds that refer to nature. When the bass recorder comes to the fore, the character of the piece changes. The sounds of the bass recorder are played backwards, stretched and ‘frozen’. A rhythmic pattern emerges from the bass recorder sounds by moving in and out of a buffer. A little later, a hard, rustling layer is heard, breaking the rhythmic pattern – the established routine – until only noise remains. The storm dies down, as it were, as the piece gradually disappears into nothingness.

Not everything in this composition is fixed note by note. De Sadeleer composes the general structure and decides in advance what effects she will use. However, the length of a section may vary from one performance to the next. After all, the effects do not react the same way to different input. This is why no two performances are identical and there is always a degree of unpredictability within the predefined structure.
A deliberate decision was made not to play any melodic lines in this piece. What you do hear is an accumulation of sound fields and colours. This creates a striking contrast with the works of Detri and Van Eyck.

This project was made possible by the donations of many music lovers to AMUZ’s ‘Support Fund for Young Belgian Artists’. 

Programma
Signor Detri [Louis Detry?] (?-?)
Sonate in c voor blokfluit en basso continuo
I. Adagio
II. Presto
III. Adagio
IV. Gigue. Allegro

Lieve De Sadeleer (°1995)
Breaking the routine

Jacob van Eyck (1590-1657)
Der fluyten lust-hof
CV. Bouffons
CXXIV. Laura

Performers
Lieve De Sadeleer, recorder & Giulio Quirici, theorbo and Baroque guitar

29 May, 2021 10:00

Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450/55-1521)

The mass has been passed down, in full or in part, in twenty sources: seven prints and thirteen manuscripts. The most important sources are the Missarum Josquin liber secundus (Ottaviano Petrucci, Venice, 1505); B-Br Ms. 9126, fol. 1v-13r (Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels) and D-Ju Ms. 3, fol. 29v-43r (Universitätsbibliothek, Jena). The numbering in New Josquin Edition is 3.1.

The cantus firmus of the Missa Ave maris stella is the Gregorian chant of the same name. The mass is in four parts.

This is a production of Alamire Foundation in collaboration with AMUZ.

Performers
Cappella Pratensis, with the cooperation of Eric Jas & Stratton Bull

Stratton Bull superius & artistic direction | Tim Braithwaite, superius | Lior Leibovici, altus | Korneel Van Neste, altus | Pieter De Moor, tenor | Julian Podger, tenor | Grantley McDonald, bassus | Marc Busnel, bassus

Festival
Laus Polyphoniae 2021 | JOSQUIN

20 August, 2021 10:00

Radio Broadcast

This edition of Laus Polyphoniae will also open with a Klara radio broadcast. The presenter and host Nicole Van Opstal turns the spotlight on Josquin des Prez, the focal point of the festival, in conversation with several guests including the festival director, Bart Demuyt, musicologist Aletheia Vanackere and Paul Van Nevel, the artistic director of Huelgas Ensemble, who has admired Josquin des Prez’ work all his life. With music by Hannelore Devaere and Dimos De Beun. The broadcast will be followed by the festival’s opening concert, performed by Huelgas Ensemble, which will also be broadcast live on Klara.

Nicole Van Opstal, radio host | Liesbet Vereertbrugghen, producer | Renate Weytjens, producer | Hannelore Devaere, harp | Dimos De Beun, harpsichord

Practical
Friday 20 August 2021
18.00 – 20.00, AMUZ

Festival
Laus Polyphoniae 2021 | JOSQUIN

20 August, 2021 18:00

Josquin des Prez: A Man for all Seasons

The opening concert immediately immerses you in Josquin’s creativity as a composer. Paul Van Nevel presents a selection of religious and profane music, including chansons such as La plus des plus and Marian motets including the twelve-part Inviolata, integra, et casta es. Josquin also influenced composers in later generations, such as the German Ludwig Daser with his Missa Praeter rerum seriem, inspired by Josquin’s motet of the same name.

Programme
J. des Prez: Huc me sydereo/Plangent eum, Missa Malheur me bat (Sanctus), La plus des plus, Illibata Dei virgo nutrix/La mi la, In te Domine speravi, La belle se siet, Praeter rerum seriem, Comment peult avoir joye, Inviolata integra et casta es | L. Daser: Missa Praeter rerum seriem (Sanctus)

Performers
Axelle Bernage, Maria Valdmaa, Dorothea Jakob, Helen Cassano, cantus | Olivier Coiffet, Paul Bentley-Angell, Achim Schulz, Loïc Paulin, Tom Phillips, Matthew Vine, tenor | Frederik Sjollema, baritonans | Kees Jan de Koning, Guillaume Olry, bassus | Paul Van Nevel, artistic director

Laus Polyphoniae 2021
Friday 20 August 2021 – 20.00, AMUZ

20 August, 2021 20:00