9p.m.
Eleonore Pameijer - flute and Marcel Worms - piano :
Music from the time of Anne Frank
two dutch musicians play works from jewish composers around World War II, which most of them did not survive. New York based Israelian composer Alon Nechushtan composed a new work for the duo.
Eleonore Pameijer - flute
Marcel Worms - piano
1.Alon Nechushtan (1974)
- Light our sorrow: Variations on a sacred jewish theme (2003)
-Prayer of the wind (at dawn)
-Desert Sun Dance
-Into the Meadow
-Across the path of snow
-Escape from the
pit-Festive parade
-Stellar caves
-Sailing across the sunset
-Prayer of the wind: at dusk
2.Dick Kattenburg (1920-1943) - Sonate (1939)
-Introduzione: Maestoso
-Intermezzo: Andante quasi lento
-Fughetta: Allegro vivo
3.Leo Smit (1900-1943) - Deux Hommages for piano solo (1928-1930) Hommage ŕ Sherlock Holmes
Hommage ŕ Remmington
4.Leo Smit - Sonata for flute and piano (1943)
-Allegro
-Lento
-Allegro moderato
Intermission
5.Rosy Wertheim (1888-1949) - 3 Pieces for flute and piano (1939)
-Cortčges des marionettes
-Pastorale
-Capriccio
6.Marius Flothuis (1914-2001) - Lamento from Sonata da camera op.17 (1943)
7.Jeff Hamburg (1956) - Uncle Mendel’s Ukrainian Blues (1999)
8.Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) - Sonata for flute and piano (1927)
Allegro moderato
Scherzo
Aria:Andante
Rondo - Finale: Allegro molto gajo
Music from the time of Anne Frank
There was a very lively cultural scene in Amsterdam in the years
before the outbreak of the Second World War. Many of its active
participants were Jews, some of them Amsterdam born, others had moved
to the city in the thirties escaping the upcoming violence in
Germany. During the war, all art forms, including music, had to fit
the tight rules of the invader and after the war it became clear that
only few of the many Jewish artists had survived the Holocaust.
In this program two Dutch musicians joined forces to explore the
music that Jewish composers wrote in the thirties and forties and
place this music in a historical context. Compositions by jewish
contemporary composers, such as Alon Nechustan en Jeff Hamburg, will
also be performed in order to give the program a contemporary
perspective. The pieces are chosen for their musical and esthetic
qualities.
Music from the time of Anne Frank is not a sad account of what could
have been, but a positive testimony of a time that was. The music
does not mourn a vanished world but paints a vivid picture of an
intensive period in Dutch-Jewish history and is a rare opportunity to
get acquainted with some excellent music, placed in its rich context.
Eleonore Pameijer and Marcel Worms are playing together since 1999.
In 2002 they started the ‘Six Continents Project’: cultural diversity
versus globalisation. For this project they invited 18 composers
throughout the world to compose a piece for them, that the composer
considers essential to his or her culture in the broadest sense. In
the framework of this project tours are scheduled to all six
continents.
Biographies
ALON NECHUSHTAN
Alon Nechushtan received his Bachelor’s in 1999 from the Jerusalem
Academy of Music and Dance having studied composition with Mark
Kopytman, Tzvi Avni, Heinz Alexander, Joseph Bardanashvily and jazz
and movie score writing with Slava Ganelin.
He received his Master of Music degree from the New England
Conservatory in December 2002, studying composition with Micahel
Gandolfi, Orchestration with Lee Heyla,and additional composition
lessons with Lucas Foss at the Boston University.
He has also studied piano improvisation with Fred Hersch, Paul Bley,
Ran Blake and Danilo Perez, Big Band and jazz composition with Bob
Brookmeyer and improvisation with Jerry Bergonzy, Bob Moses and
George Garzone.
Alon Nechushtan has been a regular recipient of the America-Israel
Cultural Foundation awards since 1998. He has received numerous
scholarship including the New England Conservatory award, the Kerem
award in Jerusalem and grants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The composer collaborated with many visual artists and composed music
for more than 20 films, modern dances and theatre plays including the
International Students movie Festival in Tel Aviv and the play ‘The
king must die by Unesco’ collaborating with French director Alexey
Dalzas.
Alon Nechushtan has recently performed with his own quintet ‘the
Blobs’ in the Zeitgeist Piano Festival in Cambridge, Mass. and in
several clubs in Boston, Mass. The Band plays his original
compositions as well as well known standards and middle eastern and
modern jazz influenced music.
He has also written original compositions and arrangements for
various Big Bands including the New England Conservatory Jazz
composers Big Band (directed by Bob Brookmeyer ), The M.I.T
Festival Orchestra (directed by Fred Harris) and the BMI orchestra
(directed by Jim Mcneily and Michael Abene)
He wrote various chamber pieces commissioned by leading ensembles in
the United States, his native Israel and Europe.
His compositions have been performed in more than 20 countries
including Japan (where he was invited to compose a piece for the
Festival of music composition ‘Rejoicing sounds ‘in Yokohama), in
South Africa and in Israel where he has primiered his ‘Duel’ for
classical and jazz quartets performed together with the Musica Nova
Consort during the Bienalle for New Music in Tel Aviv, conducted by
the Australian conductor Keynan Jones.
DICK KATTENBURG
The manuscript of the Flute Sonata by Dick Kattenburg was send to
flutist Eleonore Pameijer on her birthday five years ago. Since
Pameijer started the Leo Smit Foundation, people send her
manuscripts, hoping that these pieces will be performed and have a
musical life. Pameijer has been able to organise performances of most
of these compositions. The sender of the Kattenburg manuscript is Ima
Spanjaard-van Esso, the mother of the well-known Dutch conductor Ed
Spanjaard. When Ima van Esso was a young girl she played the flute
and 19-year old composer Dick Kattenburg was impressed with her
playing. He wrote a Flute Sonata for her. When the war broke out in
1940 both Ima van Esso and Dick Kattenburg were send to concentration
camps because of their jewish background. Ima survived Auschwitz, she
played the flute in the camp’s band and was saved that way. Dick
Kattenburg didn’t survive. As far as we know the Flute Sonata is the
onliest composition of his that still exists. According to Ima it is
a musical love letter.
LEO SMIT
Leo Smit was born on May 14, 1900 into a Dutch-Jewish family in
Amsterdam. He studied composition with Bernard Zweers and Sem
Dresden. He was the conservatory’s first composition student to
graduate cum laude (1924).
Shortly after his graduation he became theory- and composition
teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory. His composition Silhouetten
was performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Cornelius
Dopper in 1925.
In 1927 Leo Smit left for Paris, where he “could perceive the
presence in the city of people like Ravel, Roussel, Schmitt and
Stravinsky”. He was friendly with members of the Groupe des Six as
well as other French contemporaries.
Meanwhile many of his compositions were performed by leading
musicians and conductors of the day. For example, the ballet
Schemselnihar was performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted
by Pierre Monteux on December 19, 1929. On February 25, 1934, Eduard
van Beinum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra performed his Concertino
for Harp and Orchestra. Rosa Spier was the harp solist.
He returned to Amsterdam in 1937. There he composed, among other
works, his Trio for clarinet, viola and piano (1938), the Viola
Concerto (1940) and his Divertimento for piano four hands (1940).
After the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, it became
more and more difficult for Leo Smit to get his music performed as
the Nazis banned all Jewish artists from public life. Only the New
Jewish Chamber Orchestra was allowed to perform his works as well as
those of other Jewish composers.
The Flute Sonata (1943) is one of his last compositions.
Leo Smit was arrested on March 25, 1943 together with his wife and
was detained in Amsterdam. He was transported to Westerbork three
days later and finally deported on April 27 to Sobibor, where he was
murdered on April 30, 1943.
ROSY WERTHEIM
Rosy Wertheim (1888-1949) was born into a well-known family of
bankers in Amsterdam. After high school, her parents sent her to
boarding school at Nevilly. Inspired by the excellent piano lessons
she got there, she decided to become a pianist. After her return to
Holland, she took harmony and counterpoint lessons with Bernard
Zweers and Sem Dresden. In the twenties, driven by social commitment,
she lead children’s choirs consisting of ‘the worst little tramps’ of
Amsterdam.
As the music of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky grew in importance to
her, the feeling grew that she had to cross the border. In 1929, she
decided to go to Paris to study for six moths. Once there, she had
contact with Louis Aubert and Elsa Barraine and the six months turned
into six years. In 1935, Rosy Wertheim left for Vienna, in 1936 for
New York and in 1937 she returned to Amsterdam.
During the war, she went into hiding and her composing came to an
end. Shortly after the liberation she fell ill and in 1949 she died
in Laren.
Her earliest works are written in a romantic idiom ŕ la César Franck,
but in the thirties she developed a sober, modern language of which
the Three Pieces from 1939 are the best examples.
MARIUS FLOTHUIS
He studied piano, music theory and musicology. From 1937 until 1942
he was assistant to the artistic director of the Concertgebouw, from
1946-1950 librarian at Donemus Amsterdam, from 1945 until 1953 music
critic of the newspaper Het Vrije Volk, from 1953 until 1955
programme editor with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and from 1955 until
1974 artistic leader with the same orchestra. From 1974 to1982
Flothuis was professor of musicology at the Utrecht University. From
1980-1994 he was chairman of the Zentralinstitut für Mozart-Forschung
in Salzburg.
Since 1935 numerous articles by Flothuis were published in serials in
The Netherlands and abroad. He compiled and edited albums with old
piano pieces and songs by Dutch composers. His edition of Haydn’s
cantata Arianna a Naxos was published by the Haydn-Mozart-Presse,
Vienna 1965.
As a composer Flothuis is self-taught. He has written works in all
categories, with the exception of opera.
During World War II he was deported to the Concentration Camp Vught
in the Netherlands because of his activities in the resistance
movement against the nazi’s. During his imprisonment there he
composed the ‘Lamento’ which will be performed at this concert.
JEFF HAMBURG
Jeff Hamburg, born in Philadelphia, has been a successful composer
based in the Netherlands since 1979. Perfomances of his music in the
last few years include premieres in the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam to
recordings made by the BBC. This season alone will see three major
orchestral premieres.
Hamburg studied acoustics and composition at the University of
Illinois (BM), continuing his studies at the Royal Conservatory in
the Hague (the Netherlands) with Louis Andriessen. He received the
Conservatory Prize in 1986. He also studied conducting with David
Porcelijn.
Hamburg was commisioned by major orchestras and ensembles in the
Netherlands, the USA and Australia. The Residentie Orchestra of the
Hague performed his large symphonic work ‘Zachor’ (Remember) in
November 2001 to standing ovations.
Hamburg himself led members of the Philadelphia Orchestra in the
American premiere of his string orchestra composition ‘A Prayer and a
Dance’.
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra recently recorded and broadcast
his symphony of Psalmes ‘David’.
In March 2002, the Radio Chamber Orchestra and the Gesualdo Consort
brought the premiere of ‘Aychah’ (Lamentations of Jeremiah) at the
Utrecht Music Center during a live national radio broadcast.
In September 2003 the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra conducted by
Yakov Kreizberg performed his recent composition ‘Kumi, ori’ in the
Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
The North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by David
Porcelijn has released a CD on the Composers Voice label with four of
Hamburg’s orchestral compositions. Several other CD’s of his music
are available.
In June 2003 Hamburg was awarded the prestigeous Visser-Neerlandia
Music Prize for the quality of his oeuvre.
ERWIN SCHULHOFF
Erwin Schulhoff , born in Prague, studied piano from an early age and
started composing as a boy. He received an excellent musical
education, with studies in Prague (1902-08), Leipzig with Max Reger
and others (1908-10), and Köln (1910-14). He also studied with
Debussy for a short time. After serving in the military in the First
World War, he spent several years in Germany composing, performing,
and collaborating on productions with Paul Klee, Georg Grosz and
other leading visual artists.
Returning to Prague in 1923, he taught piano and composition. As a
pianist, he traveled to France, England, and Russia, and was a much
sought-after interpreter of modern music. A prolific composer, he
enjoyed a great international reputation. Many of his chamber and
symphonic works received premieres at contemporary music festivals.
Popular dance, jazz and folk rhythms permeate Schulhoff’s works from
the 1920s, the small dance forms and their grotesque caricatures
standing in the foreground of his style. Hoping to protect himself
from the Nazis, Schulhoff became a Soviet citizen, but remained in
Prague. He took a strong anti-fascist stand and wrote a series of
works dedicated to concepts of social reform. Vocal symphonies with
solo voice deal with his war experiences and describe the cataclysmic
events in Germany. Schulhoff was imprisoned for his politics and race
soon after the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939. One of his
last compositions, a setting for chorus and orchestra of the
Communist Manifesto, was smuggled out shortly before he died of
typhus in the Wülzburg concentration camp in August, 1942.
ELEONORE PAMEIJER
Eleonore Pameijer studied flute with Koos Verheul at the Amsterdam
Conservatory where she received her solo diploma cum laude. She
continued her studies with Sue Ann Kahn at Bennington College
(Vermont, U.S.A.), also following master classes with Julius Baker,
Samuel Baron, Harvey Sollberger and the legendary French flutist
Marcel Moyse. After returning to Europe, she studied flute with
Severino Gazzeloni at the Academia Chigiana (Italy). She followed
special courses for Baroque Music with Jos van Immerseel, Bart
Kuyken and Ton Koopman.
In 1984 she gave her début recital in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and
was prize winner of the Frank Martincompetition. She appeared on
Dutch National Television in a program featuring ‘young soloists of
the year’. In the same year she took the initiative of organising a
huge festival dedicated to the music of the American composer Henry
Brant , including a piece for 100 flutes on boats in the Amsterdam
canals. In 1985, she became principal flutist of the
ASKO/Schönberg-ensemble, one of the leading 20th century music
ensembles in Europe.
Eleonore Pameijer has performed as soloist with many orchestras and
ensembles lead by conductors as David Porcelijn, Arthuro Tamayo,
Richard Duffalo, Ton Koopman, Oliver Knussen, Elio Boncompagni, Ingo
Metzmacher, Peter Eötvös, Philippe Entremont, Kenneth Montgomery and
Alexander Vedernikov. She has also contributed her soloistic
capacities to many Holland Festival productions, performing as well
in almost every European country, Canada and the USA.
While performing their works Eleonore Pameijer collaborated closely
with many wellknown composers a.o. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hanns
Zender, Mauricio Kagel, Elliot Carter, Gyorgy Kurtag, Luciano Berio,
Steven Mackey, Isang Yun and Gyorgy Ligeti. Numerous compositions
(more then sixty on the last count) have been written especially for
her, including Flute Concerto’s by Dutch composers like Jeff Hamburg,
Joep Straesser, Peter Schat, Vanessa Lann, Paul Termos and Guus
Janssen. Dutch publishing house Donemus published two books with
solo flute repertoire all composed for Eleonore Pameijer. In 1996 she
took the initiative in establishing the Leo Smit Foundation,
dedicated to promoting music by ‘forgotten composers’ from the first
half of the 20th century. This foundation organises monthly concerts
and radiorecordings in Amsterdam. A 4-CD-box with the complete works
of Leo Smit(1900-1943) was presented in October 2000.
In 1999/2000 Eleonore Pameijer presented a theatrical recital
‘Images’ in combination with Noam Ben-Jacov’s bodysculptures and
dancer Andrea Beugger. Five new solo flute pieces came into being
written by composers with a pop-, jazz-, Indonesian and Greek
background. The CD-Rom of this project was received with rave reviews.
Eleonore Pameijer has made many radio and television recordings as
well as an increasing number of CDs for Attacca (Telemann Fantasies,
Berio-Tempi Concertati) Composer’s Voice (numerous Dutch
compositions, Flute Concertos), Philips( Ustvolskaia, Janacek) , NM
Classics ( Dutch Flute Concertos, solo pieces), Olympia (complete
chambermusic of Jacques Ibert) and Channel Classics (Dutch Jewish
Composers, victims of the Nazis).
More information: www.eleonorepameijer.nl
MARCEL WORMS
Dutch pianist Marcel Worms (1951) studied at the Sweelinck
Conservatorium in Amsterdam with Hans Dercksen. After his graduation
in l987, he continued his studies with Alexandre Hrisanide and Hans
Broekman, specialising in 20th-Century piano music and in chamber
music.
On the occasion of the centenary (1992) of Darius Milhaud’s birthday,
Marcel Worms founded the Ensemble Polytonal, which Ensemble performed
in an all-Milhaud program in Holland and France in that year.
He premiered early piano works of Arnold Schoenberg in the
‘Icebreaker’, centre of modern music in Amsterdam; He performed the
complete piano works of Leos Janácek (including a four-hand piece,
that he discovered in Brno). His programme Jazz in 20th-Century Piano
Music, launched in the 1992/93 Season, was broadcast nation-wide by
Dutch radio. It was subsequently released on CD by the Dutch label
BVHAAST. As a result Marcel Worms was invited to play this programme
in many European countries, North America, Russia, South-Africa and
Indonesia. He launched this programme in New York and Washington DC
in 1994 and returned to the US for recitals in 1995,1996 and 1998.
In the Season 1994/95 Marcel Worms started a programme titled
Mondrian and the music of his time to commemorate Mondrian’s death,
50 years ago. Several composers, including Willem Breuker and Theo
Loevendie had been commissioned to write for it . This programme was
played in many European countries and the USA. About the concert in
the National Gallery of Art in Washington the Washington Post wrote:
All this was virtuoso fare and Worms played it with joy, grace and,
at times, humour that was contagious and captivating. In 1996 he
played this program in the Hermitage Theatre in St.Petersburg, in the
Pushkin Museum in Moscow . A CD of the program has been released for
Emergo Classics.
A CD with the complete music for piano and wind instruments by
Francis Poulenc has been released also on the label Emergo Classics.
A CD with piano music by Jean Wiéner has been released in 1996 for
the BVHAAST label.
His programme ‘Blues for piano’ to which many well-known Dutch
composers contributed with a piece has been premeried in January 1997
at the ‘BIMHUIS’, jazz centre in Amsterdam. In the meantime more
than 150 new Blues have been composed for this project including
pieces from around 35 different countries around the world. He
played the programme at the Moscow Conservatory in 1997 and at the
Conservatories of Beijing and Shanghai in 1998. In 1999 he has played
it at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Hague, in 2000 at the
Festival of Flandria , in 2001 at the Warsaw Autumn Festival and in
2002 at the EU Jazz Festival in Mexico City.
In 2000 he played his Bluesprogram in all the countries of the
Balcan. Composers from all of these countries wrote a contribution
for this tour.
In the 1998-1999 season the artist has focused on Vincent van Gogh
and Pablo Picasso and their relation to music. Both projects have
resulted in a CD recording.
Between 1998 and 2004 concerts have been given by Marcel Worms in
many European countries, South-America, South-Africa, Israel, China,
Cuba, the United States and the Far East.
The artist is a regular guest on Dutch radio.
In 2002 Marcel Worms focussed a.o. on the pianoworks of the Spanish
composer Federico Mompou.
A Tangoprogram, which was performed a.o. in China and Argentina,
resulted in a CD with Tangos for Piano in 2002.
Discography
*Jazz in 20th-Century Piano Music /BVHAAST 9403
*Jean Wiéner - Works for piano /BVHAAST 9614
*Francis Poulenc - Complete Works for piano and wind instruments
(with ‘Groupe des Sept’) /Emergo Classics EC 3947-2
*Pictures at a Mondrian Exhibition / Emergo Classics EC 3935-2
*Pictures at a van Gogh Exhibition / Vermes Records 98-01
* Picasso and the Music of his Century / Via Records
* Blues for Piano (NM EXTRA 98014)
*Darius Milhaud - Chamber Music - with Ensemble Polytonaal (Channel Classics)
*Jean Wiéner - Chamber Music / BVHAAST 1201
* More New Blues for Piano / NMEXTRA 98021
*Tangos for Piano from Latin America and Europe / BVHAAST 0702
More information: www.marcelworms.nl