In the Koloniekerkje in Wilhelminaoord, the ensemble Black Pencil performed on Sunday afternoon, a music company that is special in many respects. The five musicians come from Venezuela, the Netherlands, Turkey, Austria and Spain. Their repertoire spans a thousand years of music history.
The musicians use a large collection of recorders, pan flutes (up to 1.5 meters), a viola, accordion and percussion instruments. They play old music, but in a newly arranged jacket. Their repertoire also includes contemporary music with influences from all over the world. Dutch and foreign composers have written 300 new compositions for this ensemble. That is a lot and at the very least makes curious.
For the concert of the Colony Concerts, a Renaissance and Baroque program was chosen with compositions by, among others, Johann Sebastian Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi and the British Renaissance composers John Dowland and Thomas Morley. One wonders whether this ancient and often ‘sanctified’ music can be performed on instruments that did not exist then, such as marimba, pan flute and accordion. Is that actually possible?
Fresh and cheerful
In the case of songs of the 16 e century composers John Dowland and Thomas Morley, the arrangements sounded almost natural. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dowland and Morley had used it if they had these instruments at their disposal. The farcical suite Burlesque de Quixote by Georg Philipp Telemann about the adventures of Don Quichotte and his servant Sancho Panza, in a delightful arrangement by Roderik de Man, excited the audience. It was even laughable at the hilarious horse and donkey gallop of Don Quixote and his servant. They just didn’t give a damn. The enthusiasm before the break also applied to the Concerto Grosso RV 558 by Antonio Vivaldi. It was a fresh and cheerful concert in which the recorder and the pan flute let the birds chirp in the forest. The members of Black Pencil clearly had fun playing themselves. And that was infectious for the 130 visitors. I found the arrangements (also by Roderik de Man) less successful in the interpretations of Bach. By the parts Contrapunctus I, IV and XI from The Art of Fugue it was admittedly difficult to get used to the other timbres, but you got the feeling that they were performed with respect for the original compositions. It gave the association with a performance on organ. But in the 14 e Contrapunctus flew the arrangement out of control in my opinion. This work, which was not completed by Bach, ended in the arrangement with shrill high tones, which resembled badly adjusted hearing aids. This felt like an anticlimax.
The tension that had built up in the first part of the concert, unfortunately partly disappeared after the intermission. The various short pieces of music were performed non-stop without explanation, causing part of the audience to lose their way. At the same time you listened to the music performed, while consciously or unconsciously you still compared the music as it was originally intended. That did not make relaxing listening to some works easier. Black Pencil has a very extensive and diverse repertoire. A few contemporary compositions written for them would not have been out of place as a variation in the program performed. All in all: the smashing conclusion with the Mezzetin and Turc by Telemann once again delighted the visitors. This resulted in a dazzling Romanian dance by 17th century composer Johannes Caioni as an encore, a composition that has been rediscovered by Black Pencil.
André Tempelaar