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'Gedenk in Stilte' and 'La mort d'un tyran'
17.02.2010Seldom has the audience’s level of concentration during a concert been so tangible, or so stimulating, as during the performance of The Seven Last Words from the Cross by James MacMillan in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on 27 January. The Nederlands Kamerkoor and Amsterdam Sinfonietta, conducted by Peter Dijkstra, demonstrated just what the top Dutch music ensembles are capable of.
No less beautiful and moving was Fauré’s Requiem, but, as one listener wrote: “MacMillan came as a terrific surprise to us – such dynamics, such a hell, such submission, such stillness. After that, Fauré was almost an ordinary concert.”
In Eindhoven too, at the final concert of the successful Storioni Festival, as well as in The Hague, reactions were just as enthusiastic, and often emotional as well. In Eindhoven two smaller-scale works by MacMillan were also performed: Mary’s Lament for soprano, tenor and piano trio (sung in exemplary fashion by NKK members Annet Lans and Alberto ter Doest) and Who are these Angels? for male quintet and string quartet. Also providing the soloists in The Seven Last Words, as well as those in Fauré‘s Requiem (soprano Heleen Koele and baritone Jasper Schweppe), the Nederlands Kamerkoor proved once again that it has in its ranks soloists of the highest quality.
La mort d’un tyran
Hot on the heels of this special collaboration with Peter Dijkstra and Amsterdam Sinfonietta came a collaboration between the Nederlands Kamerkoor and yet another familiar partner: the ASKO/Schönberg Ensemble, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. The programme encompassed the interbellum period, under the title La Mort d’un Tyran (taken from the title of a piece by Darius Milhaud included in the programme) and presented a sophisticated and exciting selection of works from the period between the two World Wars, by Bartok, Janacek, Stravinsky, Toch, Villa Lobos en Milhaud. The sparks flew, with folksy and rustic music one minute and southern passion or fierce and political conviction the next.
Reinbert de Leeuw unremittingly whipped up his troops to do their utmost, and the audience in the Muizekgebouw aan het IJ gave as good as they got. In other words, it was a real treat.
[LS]
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