Festival Music from the Netherlands

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 776, 4 June 1954, Page 18

Festival Music from the Netherlands

‘THE Holland Festival, like the Salzburg Festival and the Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama, is one of the outstanding events of the European summer. Four programmes recorded at the Fifth Holland Festival at The Hague last summer will be broadcast by the YC stations in coming weeks, starting at 1YC at 7.55 p.m. on. Tuesday, June 8. The programmes include Hindemith’s Matthew the Painter, performed by the Concertgebouw Orches- | tra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, performed by The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra, with Hans Henkemans as soloist, and works by Orlando di Lasso, Vivaldi, apd Handel. The emphasis- of the 1953 Holland | Festival was on music, and it opened | with a gala performance of Falla’s La Vida Breve, under Henri Tomasi, ‘with Victoria de los Angeles as guest soloist. Other outstanding events were a per- ) formance of Verdi’s Otello, with Ramon | Vapay: in the title role, a controversial | performance of Alban Berg’s opera | Lulu, and works by Hindemith, Prokofieff, Mozart and some modern Dutch composers. The first programme to be broadcast here includes extracts from most of these performances, and a talk which surveys the Festival as a- whole and describes the performers. The second programme includes a performance by the Netherlands Bach Society and the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dr. Anthony van der Horst of Handel’s Sixth Chandos Anthem, and a_ selection of songs by Orlando. di Lasso sung by the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Orlando di Lasso was a 16th Century composer (his polyphonic motets, it will be remembered, were the subject of one of Sherlock Holmes’s monographs), and the Nether- ' lands Chamber Choir has specialised in music of this period. Finally, in the second programme The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini play La Primavera from Concerti della Stagioni, by Vivaldi. The soloists are Hans Henkemans, piano, and Theo Olof, violin. Hans Henkemans is also the soloist in the performance of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, with The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, which will be heard in

the third programme at the Festival. Henkemans is one of Holland’s most promising composers

as well as one of its best pianists. The fourth and possibly the best programme in the series contains a performance of Paul Hindemith’s Matthew the Painter, by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The Concertgebouw Orchestra was founded in 1887 and became famous under William Mengelberg, who was its conductor for 50 years. Richard Strauss dedicated his tone poem, A ‘Hero's Life to the orchestra and its conductor, and Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Hindemith and Milhaud all came to Amsterdam to conduct their works with it. At the time that Mengelberg was dividing his activities between Holland and New York his baton was taken up in his absence by such conductors as Pierre Monteux, Bruno Walter and Karl Muck. Since the war Mengelberg’s place has been taken by Eduard van Beinum. The organisers of the Holland Festival of 1953 aimed at making it as international an affair as possible, and besides such guest artists as Eugene Ormandy, Victoria de los Angeles and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, there were a number of visiting orchestras and choirs. The Italian Virtuosi di Roma, under Renato Fasano, the Stuttgarter Kammer Orchester conducted by Karl Munchinger, and a Belgian Chamber Music Group under al Collaer all gave performances. Among the most important icin! events of the season were the performances of the Netherlands Opera, which put on The Marriage of Figaro and Weber’s Der Freischutz, and of the Municipal Opera from Essen. There was also drama, numerous. exhibitions in Holland’s museums, and evenings of ballet. The National Dance Group from Greece performed in the open air theatre in the dunes at Bloemendaal; from India came Ram Gopal and his Indian Dancers and Musicians; Manolita y Salvador and his Spanish Company were welcomed from Spain; and the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas Was also enthusiastically received. Concerts were given in a number of smaller towns in addition to the main activities in The Hague and Amsterdam. The Netherlands Bach Society gave a performance of Bach’s Mass in F Major in the St. John’s Church in. Gouda. The Bach Society also gave a performance, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, of Bach’s B Minor Mass in the 14th Century church at Naarden. The four programmes to be heard from YC stations in the next few weeks were culled from the best of these performances during the month the Festival lasted. They were sent to the NZBS by the Radio Nederland Transcription Service, and are of a very high standard.