november 2009 – A bit of a first night in idyllic Geldrop Castle: Trio Amare played the first movement of my setting of Heine’s Bergidylle…
I am just about to finish the composition of the Bergidylle on texts by Heine, so it was not just exciting but downright instructive to be able to hear the first movement of the work already in a live performance. Trio Amare played it in the chamber music series of the Strabrecht Theatre in Geldrop Castle, an appropriately idyllic location where in a genuine 18th-century salon a large, diverse (but usually elderly) audience had gathered to savour Beethoven (who was able to write beautiful concert arias) Schubert, Mendelssohn and Greaves. To its apparent relief, and to the delight of some, the only living composer on the programme, which was me, appeared not to be wholly out of place, and he was present as well! And this as well to his own delight, because oh oh, there are many ways to be wrong about texture and balance, even (or especially, perhaps) in a line-up as small as this one for soprano, clarinet and piano. 
Not to mention theatrical effect – but Sabine Wuethrich, even this first time round, made it abundantly clear that the maliziös-sentimentale style (as Heine himself describes his poems) perfectly suits her. Unfortunately clarinettist Celeste Zewald could not perform that day, but she was replaced by another magnificent musician, Coen Stuit.
I am looking forward to the piece’s première in Februari 2010.
