Concertzender Newsletter

Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd December 2019

Theme: Crosslinks

through that dark night

This month the nights are the longest, especially 21st December. But the Concertzender will get you through the night. From 11.00 Saturday 21st December to Sunday morning 22nd December 07.00 we’re broadcasting a once off wonderful ambient extravaganza night, called Winter Solstice.

Our 4 Sunday programme makers will be teaming up! Peter van Cooten (DreamScenes), Bob Rusche (X-Rated and X-Ray), Roel Janssen (Space Exposure) and Harrold Roeland (Sensenta) will be playing, mainly live from the studio, the loveliest quiet music. So lovely you wish you’d be able to push gold old Helios down behind its horizon indefinitely.

From dusk till dawn: Concertzender all stars
Normally you’d hear these four radio men separately, on Sunday evening. Together they consistently get the best watching, listening and rating numbers! Just this once they’re working intensively together. And yes: there is a timetable for who ( more or less ) does what (probably) when and (around) what time. But of course it’s much more exciting to experience our nightly heroes live, safe and sound, from under the comfort of your very own duvet. Missing would be a sincere embarrassment. So prepare your coffee machine and set your alarm clock to 12/21/23.00!

Every weekday from Wednesday 4th December 2019

Theme: Classical Music

Composer of the month: C. Ph. E. Bach

Composer of the month December is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, second son of Johann Sebastian. Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788) worked from 1734 at the university of Frankfurt, where he wrote mostly instrumental music. As experienced musician he knew exactly what good musicians were capable of and the sort of music his boss wanted.

At the same time he was a composer who knew the market, which wanted interesting but relatively simple music. Bach was a pragmatist and died wealthy.

Carl Philipp Emanuel was an expert in instrumentation and he liked changes of tempo, contrasts and unexpected changes of harmony. Through those characteristics he gave musical expression to a movement already present in literature: the Empfindsamkeit, with emphasis on overt emotions and powerful gestures. In this way he distanced himself from his father’s more level idiom.

In 1741 the composer went into the service of the noble flute player Frederik the Great of Prussia. Bach wrote primarily chamber music and did a lot of teaching.

Theme: Contemporary Music

20th century opera explained: Life with an Idiot, by Alfred Schnittke

It can be done: a recent Russian opera, premiering in Amsterdam. We’re talking about Life with an Idiot by Alfred Schnittke. The opera premiered on 13th April 1992 in the Muziektheater Amsterdam. The story is an allegory about Sovjet repression, to a libretto by the Russian writer and essayist Viktor Jerofejev. Schnittke had worked with him before.

The première was described as “a fusing of contemporary Russian talent, comparable with what Diaghilev achieved 75 years ago with his Ballets Russes”.

Nightmarish
A summary of the story: The central character is required as a punishment (for what is never clear!) to take and idiot into his house. He chooses Vova, who looks very distinguished but is not very communcative, as his madhouse warder had predicted. At first Vova behaves perfectly, but after a while instances of gluttony start, the library (including the Proust book so beloved of the wife ) gets chopped up and faeces are smeared on wallpaper. After the idiot then jumps into bed with the wife (who gets pregnant and has an abortion) the tables are turned. Finally Vova and the central figure become lovers, Vova beheads the wife with garden shears, leaves the scene untainted and the central figure winds up in the madhouse.

Theme: Classical Music

Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven forever

The Concertzender will be covering the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth very broadly and will be broadcasting every work in 2020 at least once. How are we going to do that? It will be a complete mix of genres. We won’t be working chronologically but by category of composition. So we’ll be combining orchestral works with songs, piano sonatas with canons and violin sonatas with arrangements of folksongs.

Every week some of Beethoven’s work will be broadcast. From Tuesday to Friday that will be complete works without much commentary, on Monday a Dutch expert in that specific genre will be asked about their affinity with Beethoven’s music. They will include Willem Brons. Paul Korenhof, Geoffrey Madge, Han de Vries, Hannes Minnaar, Maarten Koningsberger, Elly Ameling and Rien de Reede.

During the year lots of additional items will be covered, such as the trial with his cousin Karl, his influence on today’s musicians and changing performance practices of his works.

Theme: Early Music

Genre: Baroque

First broadcast concert recordings Early Music festival 2019

We start Friday afternoon 13th December! That’s when we start broadcasting the first recordings of the Early Music Festival 2019 in Concertzender Live. The concerts by Lucie Horsch & B’Rock and by Tasto Solo kick off a substantial series of our festival recordings. All programme info can be found here.

Recorder concertos from Naples
During the Early Music Festival the Belgian Baroque orchestra B’Rock was inspired by the very young recorder player Lucie Horsch. Only 19 years old, she is already one of the most successful Dutch musicians, winner of an Edison Klassiek Award 2018. During their festival programme together they played Neapolitan concertos by Leo, Mancini, Sarri, Durante and Scarlatti. This concert took place on 1st September 2019 in the Hertz at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht.

Anna Inglese, mystery
The American soprano Anne-Kathryn Olsen explored the music of a highly regarded singer at the 15th century court in Naples: Madamma Anna or Anna Inglese. She successfully built a professional musical career from it. Anne-Kathryn Olsen was accompanied by three musicians from Tasto Solo.