With a crying, almost gypsy sound, Simone Lamsma uses her first melody of Joey Roukens’ new Second violin concert. Behind her, in the buyer section of the orchestra, the remains of a series of fiery opening agreements. It takes a while before the violin dares to clamber from the layer to a higher register.
The disaster never turns out to be far away in Roukens’ piece that has its world premiere on Friday evening in TivoliVredenburg. The threat of the introduction can flare up at any time. Despite the narrative power and the energy – unmistakably Roukens – it is his darkest work so far. A reflection of the deep valley that he went through in recent years. Among other things, he suffered from an unbearable tinnitus beep: especially for a composer a tough torment.
That writing his violin concert Out of the deepespecially for Simone Lamsma and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, was a difficult process, you hardly hear any back. It has become a well -structured journey, through a musical landscape in which you as a listener constantly know where you are, but never where you are going. Ugly passages alternate with bittersweet flashbacks, as if you have a look back at the scorched ruins behind you. Lamsma then floats over wide, cinematic movements in the orchestra. Gradually her violin tone is gaining more and more intensity. She plays the solo cades like a moving rain dance for hope, which is half -up if she ends up only in the highest register. Conductor Markus Stenz gently lets the orchestra rise with her, until Lamsma’s searching closing note dies away like a whistling kettle beep.
Former chief conductor Stenz has strong chemistry with the Radio Philharmonic. In the opening of the evening, Wagner’s Overture From the Opera Tannhäuser, his upward way of conducting is striking. No enforcing battle, but a solemn wave up with which he can lift the orchestra. He removes Wagner’s music from the sometimes stifling gravity.
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From Terror to Triumph
If there was one composer who could have confirmed Roukens as hey, then the Ludwig of Beethoven was. He was already struggling with starting deafness when he wrote the biggest hit of classical music: PA-PA-PA-Paam! And not only for that is his Fifth symphony A well -found combination with the violin concert by Roukens. Because in that symphony you also take a route along horror and hope – although it is linear with Beethoven, with a clear direction: from fate that knocks at the door in the first part to the powerful victory in the ‘final’.
Has something happened during the break, or is it the music? There seems to be a completely different Markus Stenz on the goat than in Wagner and Roukens: swinging, more expressive, conducting with his whole body. Sometimes as a magician who considers the orchestra; Then again with just a powerful swip of his head to indicate a bet of the first violins. With effective gears and delays, Stenz gives the key motifs extra emphasis.
That a somewhat hopefully played second part offers too little contrast to the abyss of the first, does not bother much. Stenz convincingly guides you along Beethoven’s path from Terror to Triumph. The push through from the third to the fourth part is masterfully exciting. All you can miss is a sense of spontaneity; The idea that this two centuries old path is only mapped out here before your eyes. Every detour and every obstacle is meticulously worked out in the rehearsals, it is clear. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra plays Beethoven refreshing and certainly not on autopilot, but with a well -set route planner.
Roukens’ first violin concert.