Piano Quintet Tandernaken

The Piano Quintet was written in 2002 for the chamber music course Margess International of Switzerland, a personal commission by its artistic director, cellist Nancy Chumachenco.

This songful and rhythmically energetic piece is in two parts.
The first, T’Andernaken op den Rijn, is called after the then very famous 16th century melody from the Antwerp Song Book (then a very famous subject for variations) which turns up in the viola in the development and there mixes with the other melodies.

The second movement, Mesticcio (Arie e Danze), is a ‘melting pot music’ that blends introvert religious chant with exuberant dance rhythms. A melancholy melody in the piano serves to frame a Gregorian chant from Sankt Gallen and Sweelinck’s Ich fuer mich ueber Rheine — as if to underline the connection between Holland and Switzerland by way of Echternach (Andernaken) and the Bodensee (Sankt Gallen).

The first performance was in Zuoz, Engadin, by the five young musicians that you hear on this recording: Merel Junge and Rosanne Philippens, violin, Mei-Ing Nieuwland, viola, Genéviève Verhage, cello, and Yuri van Nieuwkerk, piano.