Swan song Tristan Keuris in Friday at Vredenburg

Since the broadcasting series Vredenburg Friday started six years ago, it has managed to attract an ever-expanding audience. This despite the initially rather inhospitable emergency location on the A2 motorway, whose curse name 'Red Box' has since become a nickname for audiences and musicians alike. No wonder, as acoustics and accessibility have improved considerably, while the foyer can now be called downright cosy. Moreover, every year, programmer Astrid in 't Veld weaves exciting threads through the programming, linking the iron repertoire to contemporary music in a tasteful way.

One of the themes this season is the city of Utrecht itself, which was already a vibrant musical centre in the nineteenth century. A nice prelude to the inauguration of the ambitious Music Palace in 2013 (or will it be 2014 after all?). It features music by many composers who worked in Utrecht, such as Hendrik Andriessen, Willem Pijper and Peter Schat, and Peter van Onna is writing a new composition for the commemoration of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

The series also pays attention to tone poets who maintained warm ties with the city of Dom, such as Arthur Honegger and Johannes Brahms. Brahms was a guest there several times and a well-known anecdote has it that he found the Utrecht musicians considerably better than their Amsterdam counterparts. He is therefore honoured with his own sub-series, 'Brahms & Utrecht', which includes performances of his four symphonies.

'The Red Box' - Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn

On Friday 30 November, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play Brahms' First Symphony. A century and a half ago, in 1867, he himself conducted the Dutch premiere with the Stedelijk Muziekgezelschap, the forerunner of the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra. This ceased to exist in 1985, after which the broadcast orchestras jumped into the symphonic gap and became the house organ of Muziekcentrum Vredenburg. The wry irony is that, due to new rounds of austerity, soon only the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will probably remain.

The concert opens next Friday with Arcade by composer Tristan Keuris (1946-1996). He is the incarnation of the alliance between Utrecht and broadcasting city Hilversum: as a child he was inspired by concerts of the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra, as a teenager he studied at the Utrecht conservatory and in his thirties he moved to Hilversum, where he would live until his death.

Keuris was averse to the almost compulsively imposed atonality of his time, which he felt led to drab compositions, whereas what he needed was colour and traditional tension arcs. When he heard a piece by Igor Stravinsky, he was so struck by its "incredible vitality and eloquence" that he began to rethink classical harmony and set out on his own path. His music is warm-blooded, brimming with lyrical melodies and compelling harmonies, and is often called neo-romantic. Because he wrote his notes on the body of the musicians, they worshipped him on their hands; many selflessly collaborated on a three-year-old CD box with his integral works.

When it Broadcasting Music Centre in 1996, Keuris was the right person to grace the festive reopening with a new composition, Arcade. It was commissioned by the Architects' Committee and he chose architectural concepts as a starting point, but neither the colonnade from the title nor part titles such as 'collonade', 'cornice' and 'aureole' have any visible relation to the building in question. Only the second part, 'campanile', seems to refer to the bell tower.

Muziekcentrum van de Omroep with clock tower, Hilversum

Keuris completed Arcade in 1995, not suspecting that this would be his swan song: a short time later he contracted oesophageal cancer. He still attended the premiere, but succumbed to his illness in December 1996, aged only 50. It is nice that De Vrijdag van Vredenburg is now honouring him with a performance of this six-part, highly varied instrumental piece, which musicologist Leo Samama described as 'a true jewel of craftsmanship, storytelling and richness of sound'.

May the music of Tristan Keuris resound many more times in this fine concert series broadcast live on Radio 4!

I may offer readers of this blog a discount on the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra's concert on 30 November 2012 in Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn. On the programme are works by Keuris, Stravinsky and Brahms. Get two tickets for the price of one (€25). Send an e-mail to kassa@vredenburg.nl with ref. 'Blog Culture Press', or call the box office at 030 2314544.