Concertzender Newsletter

Editorial

The Concertzender in October 2020

At the Concertzender, we’re sort of pasting things together with scotch tape and strings. Yet, despite our everlasting precarious position as an independent radio network, we continue our daily effort to present you all kinds of music that deserves to be listened to. Music that you won’t find anywhere else, for instance, or works that seek new directions. Sometimes going to dead ends, sometimes yielding new worlds, as yet unknown.

We are NOT in the business of mollifying, or seeking strokes for pleasurable sounds. To us, music is about truth, sincerity and soul. Just as long as it has an impact on its listeners, even when it is disconforting out outright annoying. As long as it stirs the listener.

This month, we bring you another fine set of examples, among which The Haydn Sonnenquartette, 25 years of X-Rated, a new show about Bureaucratic Radiophonics, and the premiere of a programma about Jewish music. And we take a walk with Manets wife too. Suzanne will be taking us down. Get stirred. And we hope to see you again in November!

Sundays 4th and 11th October 2020

Theme: Crosslinks

Genres: Electronic Music | Experimental Music

X-Rated times 25

On 1st October 1995 Kink FM broadcast the first episode of X-Rated, inspiringly led by Arjen Grolleman. X-Rated quickly developed into a source of uneveryday music, with genres such as industrial, avant-garde and counter electronics, often in a powerful mix with mysticism and the occult. Poetry was also included.

The first years were led by Bauke van der Wal and Kees de Brouwer until in 1999 Bob Rusche took it over. He continued it after the tragic death of Grolleman in January 2010 until now, as after Kink FM stopped in October 2011 X-Rated moved to the De Concertzender.

We have of course to celebate 25 years of X-Rated even though we still miss Arjen Grolleman. Unfortunately Covid does not permit us to have a lively celebration with a hall full of listeners, so we’ve come up with an alternative: on Sunday 4th and 11th October it’s the listeners who compile X-Rated. Bob has asked them to send in their favourite tracks of the past 25 years of X-Rated. We should have known – we have a truly special playlist ready for you ! So put your hamster to bed early and listen the next 2 Sunday evenings to the result.

Every weekday from wednesday 30th September

Theme: Contemporary Music

Composer: Henri Dutilleux

Composer of the month: Dutilleux

Composer of the month October is the Frenchman Henri Dutilleux. He lived to be almost one hundred but despite that Dutilleux’s oeuvre was small, and he only really got going after the end of the Second World War.

Dutilleux’s music is like a lot of his countrymen, typically French’: lyrical, magical, sound colour classically formed, it all hangs together. Still Dutilleux’s music reached further than any country boundaries. In the 60’s he got commissions from among others America, to which we owe the orchestral piece Métaboles. This piece proved to be the forerunner of a much tougher and less traditional manner of composing which produced works such as the Violin concerto and the Second Symphony. You can hear both works this month on the Concertzender. The timings can be found in your programme guide. Allez, mes amis, écoutez!

Listen:
Composer of the month, on workdays from 30th September from 16:00 to 17:00 hrs.

Tuesday 13th October 2020

Theme: Classical Music

Genre: Romanticism

Wandering with Suzanne

The 13 october episode of our programme De Wandeling tells the remarkable life story of Suzanne Leenhoff, Dutch pianist and singer and wife of the famous French painter Édouard Manet.

The musical inpiration for this walk is a CD which the cello-piano duo Oihana Aristizabal Puga and Lineke Lever recently brought out. Under the titlel La Lecture they follow Suzanne’s life with music and poems from composers and writers who played a role in her life.

From Zaltbommel to Paris
Suzanne Leenhoff grew up in Zaltbommel, but left at the end of the 1840’s with her mother, brothers and sisters for Paris where her grandmother lived. The story goes that one day in 1842 Franz Liszt sailed up the Waal to Den Haag to give a concert there. When he reached Zaltbommel he heard the carillon playing. He disembarked, followed the sound to the Gasthuistoren and struck up a conversation with beiaardier Carolus Leenhoff and his daughter Suzanne. Suzanne played a little piano, and according to the story Liszt was so impressed he advised her to go and study in Paris. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, as the saying goes.

Once arrrived in Paris Suzanne gave piano lessons, among others to the younger brothers of Édouard Manet. Around 1849 she had an affair with Édouard, but in 1852 she had a son Leon by another man….at least so the story goes.

Theme: Jazz | World Music

Adventures in Jewish music

Yet another new radio programme from the Concertzender: Adventures in Jewish music. From 20th September between 12.00 and 13.00 Micha de Winter takes you through the world of the Klezmer and thereabouts.

Micha de Winter used to work as a professor of Pedagogy. He is brother to television producer Harry de Winter. As a hobby Micha occasionally plays in a Klezmerband, where he loves talking about Jewish music. The new programme Adventures in Jewish music now gives him a radio podium. The programme will be broadcast every third Sunday of the month.

First Tuesday of every month

Theme: Classical Music

Composer: Joseph Haydn

Here comes the Sun (Part II)

by Thijs Bonger

The July newsletter was all about the sun. This prompted me to look at Haydn’s revolutionary and trendsetting set of six string quartets in his opus 20. Number 1 from that series was discussed extensively in that newsletter. And now it’s the turn of numbers 2, 3 and 4. Democracy and justice in string quartet land!

And that’s two
The second quartet, in C major, is a feast for cellists. Before Haydn wrote this piece they almost always had to settle for the unobtrusive bass part. But things are different here. Immediately in the opening movement, the cellist takes the lead and plays the melody higher than the second violin. The viola takes care of the bass part. Haydn This creates an unusual timbre that commands attention. “Capriccio” is written above the second part, with which Haydn wants to indicate that he gives free rein to his imagination. After the curious and solemn introduction with many trills, the cello is again allowed to play the melody. What follows is reminiscent of a movement from a Baroque opera, complete with arias and recitatives. Haydn is so busy in this part that he finds it difficult to come up with a suitable ending for it. That is why he ends it with a somewhat crude minuet. The finale consists of an ingeniously composed fugue with four themes. Haydn makes the listener extra curious by letting most of it be played mysteriously and softly. Only towards the end are the strings allowed to break loose.

Capricious and fragmentary
Number 3 in G minor is very different in character. The opening movement is capricious and quite fragmentary. Overall, it is sad in character but there are also forays into the grotesque.

Theme: Crosslinks

Radio goes bureaucratic

On 4th October we’re starting a new programme: Bureau Radiophonie! A programme which doesn’t concentrate on a specific musical genre , but on the soundworld in which music is played. From synthesizers to mouldy jazzpiano’s, from digital media to dusty cassette tapes and vinyl, from new music to old masterpieces. With an eye on today and often in a musical context which was not the original intention.

Before the established Sunday programme Sensenta, compiler and presenter Harrold Roeland will take you through the deepest abysses of the soundworld. Wash your ears, settle back in your chair and listen closely.

Opening times Bureau Radiophonie:
Every first Sunday of the month at 18:00 sharp. Don’t be late.