Hendrik Andriessen - Symphonic Works, Vol. 2 (David Porcelijn)

Information

Composer: Hendrik Andriessen

• Symphony No. 2
• Ricercare
• Mascherata
• Wilhelmus Rhapsody

Netherlands Symphony Orchestra

David Porcelijn, conductor

Date: 2013

Label: cpo

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hendrik-Andriessen-Symphonien-Vol-2/hnum/4918560

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Review

Hendrik Andriessen (father of the better-known Louis) is a natural target for the attentions of CPO and the excellent Netherlands Symphony Orchestra under David Porcelijn as part of their survey of Dutch orchestral music. A considerable force in his country’s music for much of his long life (1892-1981) as composer, performer, musicologist and administrator, Andriessen is now remembered chiefly for his organ music. But there are also four symphonies, which occasionally find their way into the recording catalogues (Nos 2 and 3 on Donemus, No 4 on Olympia).

The Second Symphony (1937) is virtually a manifesto for neo-classical modesty – its three movements add up to less than 19 minutes. The music seems constantly on the brink of serious issues but then somehow compulsively shies away from them. Similarly the Ricercare of 1949, emblematically based on the BACH motif, impresses by its ingenuity and crams a lot of contrapuntal invention into its 10-minute span but at the cost of a certain short-windedness. Mascherata, composed for the Concertgebouw 25 years further after the Symphony, stays broadly faithful to the same aesthetic. Its four movements are designed as dialogues with characters from the commedia dell’arte. But that’s not to say that they are in any way flippant or inconsequential. If anything they are more developed, and darker in tone, than their counterparts in the Symphony. Finally, Wilhelmus van Nassouwe (1950-51) is a rhapsody on the Dutch national anthem, but more wiry and tough-minded than that description might suggest.

Andriessen’s clean-cut lines, resourceful, often polytonal harmonies and succinct mode of expression are undoubtedly appealing and worthy of admiration. Place the Symphony stylistically in a triangle between Roussel, Martin≤ and Vaughan Williams’s Fourth, and you wouldn’t be far wrong. But look for comparable urgency and individuality, and you may be a little disappointed. Still, recording and documentation are all first-rate, and I for one look forwards to a recording of the superbly lean and energetic Fourth Symphony from this source.

-- David Fanning, Gramophone

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Hendrik Andriessen (17 September 1892 – 12 April 1981) was a Dutch composer and organist. From 1926 to 1954, he lectured in composition and music theory at the Amsterdam Conservatory while also teaching at the Institute for Catholic Church Music in Utrecht between 1930 and 1949. He was the director of the Utrecht Conservatory from 1937 to 1949, then director of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague from 1949 to 1957. As a composer, Andriessen's works included eight masses and four symphonies, as well as lieder for voice and orchestra, chamber music and works for solo organ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Andriessen

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David Porcelijn (born 7 January 1947 in Achtkarspelen) is a Dutch composer and conductor. Porcelijn studied flute, composition and conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Music in The Hague. He has held positions as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the RTB Symphony Orchestra in Belgrade, the Nederlands Dans Theater, and the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra in Denmark. Porcelijn's recordings include ones for ABC Classics, EMERGO, cpo, Future Classics and Cybelle Records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Porcelijn

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