The Lamb & The Tyger | Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk

1999b

Diptych for female choir/ mixed (youth)choir

For 'Klein Vrouwenkoor Orpheus', cond. Albert Wissink
text: William Blake

1. The Lamb
2. The Tyger

The The Lamb and The Tyger make up a small diptych based on the two poems by William Blake, from his Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1793). In seemingly childlike terms Blake sketches the miraculous paradoxes faced by one who believes in a Good Creator. The music follows the text closely while stressing echoes of The Lamb to be heard The Tyger, like the question: did He who made the Lamb make Thee, Tyger?

The diptych is dedicated to ‘Vrouwen Kleinkoor Orpheus’ and its conductor Albert Wissink.
The reason is that, while the music was commissioned by an association of male choirs, it eventually proved to be the adventurous conductor if this female choir, Albert Wissink, who took up the challenge of the piece, and with remarkable succes! The ladies of Female Choir Orpheus, with impressive dedication, succeed in bringing about the emotion that I myself experienced when I first read Blake’s quasi-naive poems.

Their fine performance is recorded on the cd Dutch Composers ‘Di Voce’ II by Female Choir Orpheus conducted by Albert Wissink. You may get an impression from the audioclips below, recorded by Bert van Dijk in the H.Hubertus Church in Ooij. Also see recordings.

The Lamb | Orpheus

The Tyger | Orpheus

About me

Musical beauty and simplicity are my aim. My guiding principle is the classical European tradition. Folk music, church music and Early Music are the sources to which I return to seek new melodic beauty. I value musical craftsmanship and intuition highly. Musicians are my first audience. It is their virtuosic interplay, comic or dramatic, but always emotionally charged, that is the musical theater my music presents to the listener. The sounds I cherish most are those that through the musician’s hearts, breath and hands bear the mark of their personal interpretation.
Chamber music is, therefore, central to me – I have written for the Bennewitz Quartet and Harry-Imre Dijkstra, the Skampa Quartet, Rosanne Philippens, the Bartók Trio, the Utrecht String Quartet and many others.
My chamber music for recorders has a special place in my work and is played in large numbers by amateurs. The CD Kadanza is a fruit of decades of collaboration with the best professionals who were often also the best teachers.
For me, choral music is also a species of chamber music. It should challenge and offer musical satisfaction to those many amateur singers – that I am one of.

My music features individual performers – to convey a thought, an emotion, and a story to the audience in a virtuoso and intense fashion.

In rehearsal and performance, the performers and I learn a lot from each other. Sometimes their improvisations are included in the musical story. Scores will always be adapted to their needs.

The interplay between performer and composer is absolutely essential in newly written music. As is the interplay between sponsor and composer.

Would you like me to rehearse with you or do you want to know more about a piece?

Do you want me to write a piece for a particular line-up or event?

Please let me know and I will contact you.

Besides composing, I lecture in New Music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, with a focus on chamber music and music aesthetics. Some of the writing and thinking that I do there can be found in the ‘text’ section.