The Orlando Festival was the oldest and largest chamber music festival of the Netherlands, and contributed greatly to the development and promotion of chamber music. The heart of the festival was in Abby Rolduc, until the last edition in 2022, which took place in the cultural centre (HuB) of Kerkrade, in the south of the Netherlands.
The curtain fell in 2022: The Orlando Festival had no choice but to stop after all subsidies from the regional government were cut. They supported the festival for 40 years, but decided to no longer fund the festival’s organiser – Stichting Kamermuziek Limburg – from January 2023.
Without the support of the province Limburg, there simply was no option to continue, despite its success for decades. This was not only the end of the festival, but also meant the loss of 50 chamber music concerts in Limburg.
During the last eight years of the Orlando Festival, Etcetera label released six CDs portraying four Dutch composers, who were highlighted during the festival: Oscar van Hemel, Hans Kox (double CD), Louis Andriessen and Rudolf Escher (double CD). The label also released seven CDs with ‘Gruppo Montebello’ conducted by Henk Guittart – artistic director of Orlando from 2014 to 2023 – dedicated to the repertoire of the Viennese ‘Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen’ (Volume 3 to 7), as well as a CD dedicated to Beethoven.
https://www.etcetera-records.com/artists/gruppo-montebello/
This episode: part of the recordings from the 2022 edition of the Orlando festival, made by Wijnand de Groot from the Concertzender. More will follow in later episodes of this programme.
Playlist
Ludwig von Beethoven
Trio op.1 no.1: Allegro, Adagio cantabile, Scherzo, Allegro assai, Finale: Presto.
Osiris Trio: Peter Brunt (violin), Larissa Groeneveld (cello) and Ellen Corver (piano)
Peter Brunt
Rudolf Escher
Sonata: Andante con grazia, Molto mosso e grazioso
Ingrid Geerlings (flute)
Ingrid Geerings
Franck Martin
Trio sur des mélodies populaires irlandaises
Osiris Trio: Peter Brunt (violin), Larissa Groeneveld (cello), and Ellen Corver (piano)
Jonathan Dove
String quartet no.4: How we spent the night; with movement, tenderly, with abandon
Weinberg Quintet: Xenia Gamaris, Anna Yanchisina (violin), Ksenia Zhuleva (viola), Peter Karetnikov (cello)
Xenia Gamaris (Weinberg Quintet)
Marius Flothuis
Sonata: Largo, Andante con grazia, Molto mosso e grazioso
Inge Geerlings (flute)
Ludwig von Beethoven
Sonata op. 17: Allegro moderato – Poco adagio, quasi andante – Rondo: Allegro moderato
Shuann Chai (piano) and Ron Schaaper (horn)
Shuann Chai
Charles Kuchlin
Sonata op. 75: Assez lent; Allegretto scherzando – Final: Allegro
Ingrid Geerlings and Marjolein Vermeeren (flute)
Cover photo: Ellen Corver
