Dutch Composers

[Lethevich]

I had rather dismissed Dopper up to now but having read these enthusiastic posts and having dusted the cobwebs off my three Chandos Dopper symphonies for Jezetha's benefit I had better give him a serious re-evaluation(and Zweers too!)

I must admit, I listened to my two Chandos CDs (Nos.2, 3 & 6) after Jezetha's recent interest in the 7th, and their impact was much lesser. I will give them plenty more listens first before a final opinion, though...

[Dundonnell]

Odd if Chandos chose to record lesser works

By no means impossible though

[Lilas Pastia]

I listened again to the Dopper 7 and De Lange 4. I had much pleasure and fun listening to Dopper's inventive potpourri of tunes and expert use of orchestration, but as a symphony I find it a bit uneven. Movements 2 and 4 stand out. It was a good idea of Dopper's to keep the scherzo short (that's movement 2). Infectiously good-humoured and foot-tapping stuff that could easily take a life of its own as a 'Proms'-like encore. And the finale is so over the top and well-crafted that it cunningly brings the house down with its rousing conclusion. I found the first movement more dutiful than impressive (one expects whooping horn thrills in a finale, as in Dvorak 8th). A good but not entirely memorable slow movement.

Superficially, De Lange's work appears as more traditional. I would rather say that the composer has a better command and understanding of the classical symphony's structure - both in its structural 4-movement outlay and their internal content. What impresses me is that this work grows from strength to strength, piling up its musical dividends like an experienced dutch banker. IOW, each movement's musical potential is bettter than the preceding one, and the whole is better than the sum of its parts. The huge brucknerian piling up of brass and timpani in the finale (around 5 minutes in) is a truly spectacular moment. I also think his themes are more original and expertly worked out.

Both works are superb additions to the music lover who has already explored every corner of the standard repertoire. I think De Lange's has more staying power and deserves to be placed on the same plane as Nielsen's first two symphonies for example.

(Edited for typos)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I must admit, I listened to my two Chandos CDs (Nos.2, 3 & 6) after Jezetha's recent interest in the 7th, and their impact was much lesser. I will give them plenty more listens first before a final opinion, though...

I'm in a hurry, so I have to be brief - I gave No. 6 a listen yesterday and was slightly disappointed, too - the 'Dopper sound' is there, and I like that sound a lot, but an 'inventive potpourri of tunes and expert use of orchestration' (to quote André) seems to be what Dopper is mainly capable of. I say 'seems', because I still have 2 and 3 to listen to. But I already listened to No. 1 too, which shows the same charasteristics... So at this moment I think the 'Zuiderzee' symphony and the Gothic Chaconne might well be (two of) Dopper's peaks, where his shortcomings turn into advantages.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

[Extended repost]

I may have been absent here, due to complex personal circumstances, but I have been listening to music, of course! One piece in particular has become a favourite -

Cornelis Dopper, Gothic Chaconne (Mengelberg, Concertgebouw Orchestra, 1940)

Just as Brahms in his Chaconne in the Finale of his Fourth Symphony, Dopper wrings a whole world of feeling and drama from his grave bass theme.

A chaconne, to quote Wikipedia, is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass) which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the Passacaglia.

Mengelberg's performance is a classic. Yes, the recording isn't perfect, but the power of the work is never in doubt. Dopper wrote it in 1920 and had to foreshorten it considerably (from 50 minutes to 15...) I don't know what we have lost, because that original version has never been recorded. Nevertheless, what we have now is an orchestral masterpiece.

For those interested, here is a link (my thanks to Sarah/Lethe!):

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mmgenqyzndy/Dopper - Gothic Chaconne.mp3

Since I wrote this, I have been in contact with Joop Stam, Dopper's biographer and one of the organisers of a Dopper Festival which will take place later this year in the composer's native Stadskanaal and other places in the province of Groningen. He writes that the full score of the Ciaconna gotica has gone missing (probably destroyed by Dopper), but that it could be reconstructed because the orchestral parts are still extant. I wish someone would do this job!

Other Dopper works I now rate more highly are the Sixth Symphony and the Päân I...

[Christo]

One piece in particular has become a favourite -

Cornelis Dopper, Gothic Chaconne (Mengelberg, Concertgebouw Orchestra, 1940)

Great to hear! The Ciaconna Gotica has been a personal favourite since the late 1970s, I think I first heard it (this same 1940 Mengelberg recording with a Concertgebouw Orchestra that had just ``lost'' its Jewish members ...) back in 1978. I loved it immediately, especially the wonderful finale (roughly from 00:14' on)   

BTW I think the title is nice but misleading; it's really a set of orchestral variations, not a chaconne.

The only other extant recording, by Kees Bakels with the Netherlands Radio SO, is quite okay. But Mengelberg is better indeed. Hope they will organize a new recording this year. 

Now playing: the Mengelberg version.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Hi, Johan! I must have listened to the Chaconne dozens of times already, and it never gets boring. An amazing piece! On November 19th the world premiere of Dopper's Requiem will take place up in the North. It's a bit far afield for me, but who knows what I'll do...

[snyprrr]

16 pages...wow!  Talk about a rabbitt hole!

H. Andriessen has a flute+harp piece that I fell in love with (Entr'acte?, Intermezzo?).  It's on a Glorian Duo cd on Delos, I believe.  When I went after Sym.No4, and the NM cd with the concertos, I was disappointed (reminded me of Hammer film music). I will have to listen to some of these downloads. btw, Andriessen has 3 SQs: Quartetto in stile antico, Il Pensiero, and L'indifferent (1957-66). Pensiero is on the Olympia cd.  I'm still wanting more from him.

H. Badings also has a couple of nice, modern flute+harp duos (Cavatina, and _____on Klavier w/Persichetti), and a flute+organ piece (Dialogo w/Martin et al), and a wind quintet, but I was checking out Amazon, and apparently cpo never followed up on their initial release. His discography is as meager as ever. SQs, please! But I really like the grey modernism of what I've heard. Won't touch the Nazi thing with a ten foot pole!

W. Pijper's SQs still elude me. Anyone want to sell?

Why must BIS, Donemus, Etcetera, etc, be soooo expensive$$$???

I would appreciate any specific SQ comments concerning any of these composers. 
Honestly, the area south of Sweden and north of France has me really scratching...yes, I DO have a map.  If I drove from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, maybe not all that much would change (stifle), but in Europe everything seems to be "county" by "county", regardless of the country name, no?

[snyprrr]

W. Pijper's SQs still elude me. Anyone want to sell?

I gotta tell ya, someone here saw this and sent me a CDr. THAT is just what this is all about, no? I won't call you out, but thanks again.

So, I finally get to hear Pijper's SQs 1-5. 2-5 are all around 10min, but they are so "festina lente" that they appear almost timeless.

I am listening to the student work No.1 (under Wagenaar; 1914) in F minor for the first time right now. Haha, the first mvmt opens in "echtCzech" mode, almost humorously so. Already I like Myaskovsky's student works better (there is a very very small similarity in the minor keyish drama). Didn't most of the composers of this "way" write longish semi-derivative/interesting student works (Hindemith No.0, Roussel PianoTrio, Respighi)? Pijper was 20 and I love the awkwared? duck walking for the first time feel. The Mahler9 slow mvmt IS nice. He hasn't quite got his chromatics down yet, but that's half the fun: a certain medievel minor key jauntiness caps this charmer!

SQs 2-4 ('20,'23,'28) from the core of the meat of the matter. No.2 opens in dramatically original impressionistic style, a Calvinist Szymanowski? If this is what the first modern DSQ sounds like, it is like an overcast/pressionism perfumed with sterile decay. No real hint of Bartok to my ears, but I feel like I WISH Schoenberg sounded like this. Yes, Calvinist Szymanowski, but structurally much more original, and honestly, at 9:59, it may very well be the best SQ under 10min next to Webern, and I might argue Pijper's soundworld more evocative, perhaps.
No.3 opens with a Pijper Waltz, creepy in that Honegger way. The slow mvmt is again the best Szymanowski I've heard, otherworldly AND restrained! Very original. The finale again reminds me of idealized Honegger/Bloch, though, I may argue, with more wit, delicacy, and originality. There is a certain horse<car overcast Dutch/Swiss urbanity here that feels like early modern pre-mature Hindemith perfection.

And No.4 opens in perfected Pijper style, sounding to me like a Calvinist Berg perhaps...I've got to admit,Pijper's SQs are really getting me. Second mvmt 2min moto. By the slow mvmt I'm thinking Crawford-Seeger? By now, the only thing left of Pijper's near hallucinatory slow mvmts is the creative use of pizz. SQ4 seems more like Hindemith meets Schoenberg: not one note is wasted on anything but the arguement, and Pijper is one of the "cleanest" composers now that I've ever heard. Clinical, yet searching.

No.5 is "late" Pijper (who died at 52? from cancer), left unfinished, 2 out of 4 mvmts. It opens in echt Pijper quartet style, original, with his trademark pizz and Dutch urbane 20th centuryness, and his rigorous restraint and constant changing of his simple germ cells. This is the best elusive style music I think I've heard; it just really had me from hello, and now through my second full listen, these SQs have satisfied a long desire for such a remarakable synthesis of styles. I have to admit that I am a fan of grey anonymous modernity, yet Pijper is one of the most original "normal" composers I've encountered. SQ2 is an unqualified youknowwhat, and 3-5 chart one of the most original courses of the time, equal to Hindemith's quartal harmonies, and with Honegger's individuality. I also hear Frank Martin and a perfected Bloch and Milhaud. Teeny teeny seeds of Dutilleux.

Pijper's SQs have ALWAYS "been on the list", but now they are revealed as one of the most inevitable cycles of development and perfection of style. Had he lived, I can picture perhaps one 20min concentrated masterpiece, but the fact that Pijper crams so much evocation into SQs of about 10min length, is so absolutely perfect 20th century music.

Yea, I could really go on...

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Snyprrr, your great post makes me want to listen to Pijper's SQs for the first time. Thank you!

[Lilas Pastia]

Are them available commercially? 

Or even anonymously ?

[snyprrr]

They're in the "hopelessly out of print" bin. None on Amazon, though it can show up on ebay.

A perfect candidate for Brilliant Classics.

[snyprrr]

Is it my imagination, or did EVERY Dutch composer of the previous generation have 2-3 children that became composers?

Beyond that, I was trying to make a list of modern Dutch composers, but it got to the point where I couldn't tell who was who: Theo Verbey, Klaas de Vries, Wagenaar,...maybe it's all those "aa"s, but also, there are just SO MANY of them! It's a HIVE!!! Do they have a leader? Is it a free for all? The Rotterdam School? Who at GMG has more than 10 Donemus cds?

AAAhhhhhhhh.......

[Dundonnell]

Yes, it is your imagination.
No.
No.
Don't know.
I don't.

Sorry that I cannot be more helpful

[snyprrr]

 - Dun, you always make me smile!

I used to have that cd of Schat's "Himel/Heavens?" conducted by Chailly (on NM?). I recall that it reminded me of Simpson's Sym.9 in that it was built on the circle of fifths. Schat's work had that perfected 1980s sound, maybe a touch of Messiaen, but for all the wow, there was still that which left me wanting.

I had some piece by Chiel Meijerling? I remember liking, haha, I know.

Yea, ever since I heard those Pijper SQs I've been on a mission to shed some light on this black hole of Dutch music, but once you hit the 60s-80s it just gets to be too many names and not enough info.

I seem to have lost Holland on the map, too.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I seem to have lost Holland on the map, too.

http://maps.google.nl/

[The new erato]

This one, anybody?



New from Sterling.

[Lethevich]

I've only heard it from mp3s of an unavailable old CD release, but I'd say go for it based on the quality of the piece. Sterling is not very well-known, but the handfull of discs I have heard by them have all had decent production standards.

The symphony sustains its length quite well in the first 3 movements, very atmospheric. Things come off the rails a little in the finale, but if you have the patience it's a great work. There are certain similarites to Langgaard's 1st, but it's rather more easy-going: perhaps imagine a middle ground between that work and Smetana.

[lescamil]

Who at GMG has more than 10 Donemus cds?

I do, but having all of these CDs just makes it all the more fun! I find that many Dutch composers these days have such original voices, including the ones you mentioned, that it's just more and more fascinating to discover new ones, including the ones after the 1960s-1980s. Yes, there do seem to be countless amounts of them, but they do have their distinguishing characteristics. I actually happen to like Theo Verbey very much, speaking of him. He has been compared to John Adams, but I find his music far more interesting. He really has an ear for harmony and rhythm, especially in his pieces Triade and Fractal Symphony.

[Christo]

This one, anybody?

New from Sterling.

I agree with everything Lethe already wrote on it. Bernard Zweers (1854-1924) is a Romantic composer, the Dutch equivalent of, say, the Czech nationalists and stylistically roughly somewhere in between Fibich and Dvořák. His Third Symphony `Aan mijn vaderland' (To My Country/Fatherland) from 1890 is his finest and also final symphony. It takes over an hour. Lethe is right in identifying the first three parts as better than the Finale. Especially the chorale-like central theme of the second movement is great, imho. Am playing it now. 

Apparently the new Sterling release is the same recording Lethe also heard, released as an LP in the 400 Years of Dutch music series and later as an Olympia cd (No. 4 in that series). It was recorded in The Hague in 1979.