If there is such a thing as ‘Holland Festival music’, then Coro by the Italian modernist Luciano Berio (1925-2003) is a textbook example of this. A grand, masterly and compelling work, which you rarely or never hear live because of the line-up and the level of difficulty – except in the Holland Festival. In a very successful double bill Coro preceded by circlethe new piano concerto by Robin de Raaff, with Ralph van Raat as soloist.
In the Gashouder on the Westergasterrein, the audience sat all around in stands, with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in the middle. The Raven had circle specifically conceived for the spacious reverberation and rounded shape of the venue, and the acoustic surround effects were an integral part of it. The shape of the work was also round, which started with a sound space of silent night music and ended that way. In between lay a trajectory of flowing, undulating and gushing music, associative yet compelling.
Also read the interview with Ralph van Raat: “I’m not exactly going to re-enact Jarrett, you don’t want to.”
Continuous transformation
What is always immediately noticeable in De Raaff’s music is the magnificent surface of moving, iridescent sound bodies, supported by an equally segregating foundation of sultry layer. Although everything was subject to continuous transformation, circle nowhere vague and the orchestral sound was remarkably transparent, with a delightful role for the spatially arranged percussion section. Conductor Matthias Pintscher, also a composer, undoubtedly felt akin to De Raaff’s language. And Van Raat, for whom De Raaff also composed his first piano concerto more than twenty years ago, excelled as primus inter pares. Especially the whisper-soft ethereal passages, when he made the grand piano sound almost like a celesta, were magnificent.
And then Berio’s had to Coro yet to come. On CD it is already an impressive work, live it was breathtaking: a kind of sounding action painting for forty singers and forty instrumentalists. Folky solos, massive drone music, rustling and clattering percussion, cacophonic outbursts, buzzing harmony vocals. The performance by RFO and Groot Omroepkoor was exemplary.