november 2011 – While only recently music of mine was played at the opening concert of the Dutch Chamber Music Festival, another work of mine could shortly thereafter be heard at the Hoorn Chamber Music Festival, together with a first performance of a new work by another Dutch composer, my neo-romantic collegue Alexander Comitas, played by the beautifully Romantic Atlantic Trio of pianist Bas Verheijden…
Only shortly after Rosanne Philippens en Yuri van Nieuwkerk played my Dance Capriccio’s in the Dutch Chamber Music Festival, another recent work of mine was heard at another Dutch festival, the Hoorn Chamber Music Festival. On November 6 the Atlantic Trio played the first performance of ‘The Black Monk’, a new piano trio by Alexander Comitas, in a programme with my recent piano trio ‘De tout mon coeur’ – a concert programme that exclusively featured new Dutch music in the classical tradition and that they also intend to bring out on cd. Two Dutch composers, two new works!
I had been very much looking forward to the piece by Comitas, who is one of the few neo-Romantics in the Netherlands, a situation that has cost him dearly, as is witnessed by the following extremely embarrassing experiment.
The Atlantics are the ideal champions of this kind of aesthetic, as is shown by by their latest cd Traces of Brahms, that features music by Juon en Gernsheim and has been presented on November 10, 2011. Pianist Bas Verheijden’s deeply Romantic convictions are also testified by his own latest solo-cd ‘The Last Romantic’, that even contains two premières, including the unknown Préludes of Friedrich Gernsheim!
In his own words:
“‘The Last Romantic’ is a title accredited to a number of pianists like Horowitz, Bolet en Earl Wild when in the eyes of some they seemed to be the last of their generation. The programme on this cd is inspired by the kind of programmes that they played. An hommage to three pianists who strongly influenced my view of music making.”
For a contemporary Dutch composer it is an honour and a great experience to have such pianistic skills being put in his service.