Contemporary music from Rotterdam travelling out of the city
They always do things differently in Rotterdam. Take all those typically Dutch things of today’s music in the Netherlands … they just leave it out. Ask a foreign fan about Dutch contemporary music, and they’ll give you Andriessen and his students, The Hague School – a stomping minimalist who like a locomotive thunders towards the end, averse from any sentiment.
In Rotterdam though, they are all about sentiment. They combine a modern idiom with a deeply personal approach. If you could compare it to anything, it’d be German music: Wolfgang Rihm and company.
It is often said, nobody outside of Rotterdam knows about this music, and no one is interested in it either. The Doelenkwartet proves this isn’t the case. They travelled from Rotterdam to the north of The Netherlands, and performed two Rotterdam quartets at Theater Romein in Leeuwarden.
No world premieres this time, but older works, which is nice for a change: no composer wants their work to be played just three times before it disappears in a dusty drawer!
Ciacona from Bart de Kemp (1959-2005) is a slightly nervous composition, that reminds us of the music from the interbellum, like that of Erwin Schulhof. Can we discover a chaconne theme (a constant bass line with variations)? That ‘s the question. Edward Top‘s First String Quartet sounds more modern, yet its expression is deeply romantic.
The third composition is of an entirely different nature. Most people would associate Different trains from Steve Reich more with the Hague than the Rotterdam School; this brings more contrast to the programme. Since this work was premiered by the Kronos Quartet, it turned out to be a real classic. So much so, that it became the tune of our programme Contemporary Music.
We play this work twice: first, the well-known beginning performed by the Kronos Quartet, followed by the entire work, performed by the Doelenkwartet!
