Netherlands Composers

[some guy]

Well, I haven't listened to the opera fragments, yet, but not having a composer's dramatic ouevre means not really knowing that composer.

Dramatic music works differently from symphonic or from chamber music. Just as chamber and symphonic work differently. We gotta have it all.

Agreed that symphony 3 is a weak work. That is true! (That's the CD I started with, too. Ouch. I got all worried that I'd wasted my money. But there's thirty dollars worth in that whole set.)

[Roehre]

The fragments of Schat's Houdini op.25, labyrinth op.15 and Symposion op.33 are representative, not only representing the operas, but also showing the development of Schat's style.

In the mid 1970s two works of his were considered masterpieces: To You op.22 (1972) and Canto general op.24 (1974), both inspired by politics, the latter by the coup d'etat in Chile in September 1973, the former by Vietnam.

(An analogy here with Louis Andriessen's Dat gebeurt in Vietnam [That's happening in Vietnam], and -instrumentally, but nevertheless agressively anti-American- De Volharding, both from 1972)

[Mambo]

Originally Posted by some guy

The Schat boxed set (12 cds, not 9) is an easy way to pick up any of Schat's music .

It's interesting to hear a composer's ouevre in chronological order. Interesting to hear the changes, to hear the decisions made, not all of them good ones!

Unusual, that for some composers, one can find sets of their
complete orchestra works; complete piano works, etc., or just
complete works.
And how the composer's style has changed over his career is key.
We often hear one or two pieces by a composer and judge him on
just those - obviously a poor strategy if we really want to get to
know his music.
I would guess the Schat 12-CD set may be difficult to locate.
First, one has to have heard of Schat.

[Mambo]

Was listening to Oscar van Hemel's Theme and Variations on
28 and 29 Feb. It gets better each time. It is not complex, but
the theme is good.
It is on LP, but i don't know about CD.
The one i have was taken off a Radio Nederland program.

Would be nice to have a set of van Hemel's complete works,
but i do not know how many LP's or CD's would be needed.

Will try this second movement of van Hemel's Ballade again
since i got a blank screen above.

[Roehre]

Originally Posted by Mambo

Was listening to Oscar van Hemel's Theme and Variations on
28 and 29 Feb. It gets better each time. It is not complex, but
the theme is good.
It is on LP, but i don't know about CD.
The one i have was taken off a Radio Nederland program.

Would be nice to have a set of van Hemel's complete works,
but i do not know how many LP's or CD's would be needed.

Would take some 15-20 CDs I think, but the change that's happening is approximately nill. There isn't much of his output on LP or CD anyway, I'm afraid.

I've got his 4th string quartet and his 3rd violin concerto on LPs, all other works of his in my collection are off-air recordings.
Haven't come across any CD with work of his myself, I'm afraid.

[Mambo]

Originally Posted by Roehre

Would take some 15-20 CDs I think, but the change that's happening is approximately nill. There isn't much of his output on LP or CD anyway, I'm afraid.

I've got his 4th string quartet and his 3rd violin concerto on LPs, all other works of his in my collection are off-air recordings.
Haven't come across any CD with work of his myself, I'm afraid.

Interesting, the 15-20 CD's estimate. I've looked for van Hemel on Amazon and a few other places, with zero results. Van Hemel is
another composer who has written a lot, but not many are familiar
with him, due to lack of recordings.
Along with van Hemel is Guillaume Landre, whose Fourth Symphony
i was listening to over the weekend. A good account of Landre
was given at the start of the recording, which i will put on here soon.
Not much was given on google about Landre - but if one is Dutch,
you are likely to know him.

[Roehre]

with Guillaume Landré it's even worse. I've got some ten works of his in my collection, without any exception all off-air recordings.
I am very doubtful whether there has been a proper commercial recording of any of his works

[Mambo]

Originally Posted by Roehre

with Guillaume Landré it's even worse. I've got some ten works of his in my collection, without any exception all off-air recordings.
I am very doubtful whether there has been a proper commercial recording of any of his works

At least you have ten. Possibly some composers just don't catch
on, for many reasons.

I will say Landre's Fourth is better listened to in the evening, with the lights off, to capture its changes in mood from lively to somber. The lively parts outnumber the somber ones, which from Landre's description below, would be more out of character. Possibly the Fourth was a change of pace from the more somber Third Symphony.
The Fourth is a series of phantasmagoric episodes, all delightful,
as the composer moves skillfully to the next one.The last half of it
has lots of exhilarating brass passages.
No serialism here; however, most of the themes are not readily
hummable or remembered either.

The beginning of the recording has narrator John van der Steen
describing Landre. Some ideas are deja vu, like those by
Neumerologist: the hungry vs. well-fed composer; the state of
compositional aesthetic.
The best note is how Landre says audiences are about three
generations behind today's artists (what's that - about 150 to 200
years?)

"Today in this program we're going to let you hear a symphony by
Guillaume Landre. I found him working in his garden between the young lettuce plants and the strawberries,
His career was determined by his hands - hands blessed with a fine
pair of green thumbs - the bony hands of a gardener, but sensitive
enough to haul in a pike of 17 pounds on a thin nylon line.
Hands though, which, as his father (Willem Landre -1874-1948) himself a composer said, were completely unfit for a musical career - with
those hands you'll never be able to play an instrument, and if you want to be a composer, you'd better see that you choose another
profession so ya can at least earn yourself a living.
So at the age of 20, Landre went to Utrecht to study law,but also to
participate in the active musical life of that city. He began to study composition with Willem Pijper, the first really modern composer
in Holland, and under Pijper's guidance, Landre became a prolific composer, even while still a student.
A remarkable combination really, music and law; Guillaume Landre
has made a success of it. Today he is one of Holland's most
prominent composers. But he's also the expert in the field of copyright and royalties, even internationally.
I asked him, did he think his music was in any way, influenced by his legal training. I mean i can imagine that a lawyer's concise and clear way of thinking may result in a well defined and lucid style of musical
expression. No, he didn't think so.
But he did have a theory about the influence of his mathematical
training. Music he said, is a matter of solid geometry - of space. The musical lines, melodic and rhythmic, should be part of intersecting
planes as it were. It is perhaps this math approach which in the last few years has given Landre a taste for the serial technique.
He likes the limitations which the system imposes - that constraint
on inspiration as he calls it. But he prefers to use the 12-tone system
to his own ends. He is certainly not a follower of Schonberg. Nor, can he be called a hanger on to astute Willem Pijper.
Instead of using short motifs as Pijper did, Landre began to express himself in broad, sweeping melody, a musical style which particularly
suited the requiem character of quite a few of his works.
I'm now thinking of a Third Symphony, written in memory of a friend:
(a mournful part of it is played)

He also composed a Requiem for the War Dead, a salute to the martyrs, dedicated to those who died for freedom in the Dutch
resistance movement, and special mention i think should be made of a symphonic work to commemorate his father's death in 1948.
Yet, i don't believe that this mournful mood which affects his work to such a great extent, has anything to do with a sort of morbid
interest in death. It is the sadness experienced at the loss of life.
Landre is very much in love with life. That is pretty obvious when you look at the dozens of plants along the windowsills in his living room and studio - and his precious roses in the garden - peace, picadilly, orangeade. His favorites are all sorts of pinkish yellow, soft, tender
colors. This amiable, gentle gardener is a leading figure in Dutch music circles - chairman of the Dutch section of the International
Society for Contemporary Music, and for many years, chairman of the Society of Netherlands Composers. Two governments have
bestowed high distinctions on him - the Dutch order of orange (nosseau -sp.)and the Swedish order of the polarstag (sp.).
But there is another decoration Landre wears on his lapel - a little golden fish - the badge of honor of the club of 100 - a select Amsterdam angler's club for which he is also chairman, and in which he counts his friends among judges and pilots, businessmen and pop singers.
Talking about popularity, Landre confesses that the present state of affairs, the misunderstanding between composers and their audience,
is a cause of continuous worry to him. Of course he says, artists have always been ahead of the public in their particular medium.
But now i have the uncomfortable feeling, not so much that we are
ahead, but the public is behind, at least three generations (!)
And i really don't understand audiences - at one concert, their
enthusiasm exceeds all bounds, for no apparent reason whatsoever.
And then the next time the same music is played, they act as if
you are an idiot.
In this battled state of mind, we have to leave the composer of the music you're about to hear.
Landre's Fourth Symphony, written in 1954, and dedicated to
Mrs. Landre, on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary,
in this recording, made during a jubilee concert of the Society of Netherlands Composers, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam was conducted by Bernard Haitink."

by the way, Roehre, is this Fourth among your Landre recordings?
it is a good one.

[Roehre]

Mambo,
yes his 4th symphony (as is his 3rd) is among the works in my collection, and given the fact that it is Haitink/CGO performing the piece, I think we've got the same performance.

There is a nice dividing line between pupils of Pijper's, those who eventually didn't start experimenting with dodecaphony, and those who did.
To the first group belong composers like Henkemans, Badings, Escher, Bosmans, van Lier and Piet Ketting (father of Otto Ketting); to the second group of composers belong van Baaren and -partly- Guillaume Landré. Where Van Baaren is a "founding father" of the The Hague School (Louis Andriessen et al.), Landré's influence is rather limited - despite (or because of?) his role in Dutch musical life.
His 4th is a work which IMO shows the qualities and finger prints of most of Landré's works - and I share your thoughts about listening to it during the hours of sunset and darkness (though I must admit that I mostly try to listen to music under these circumstances - and as a consequence I listen less to music in summer than in winter time).

[Mambo]

Great, Roehre.
i'm with you on the nighttime listening - during the day one just
does not really 'get into the music'