Mozart, Kortjakje and the princess

Last weekend 250 years ago, nine-year-old Mozart arrived in The Hague with his parents and sister Nannerl. He arrived on 11 September 1765 to perform at the stadholder court. Due to illness, the Mozarts ended up staying for nine months and the young composer wrote several works here. Harpsichordist and conductor Jörn Boysen organised the festival Mozart in The Hague To commemorate this period.

My own relationship to Mozart's music has long been a difficult one. As a child in piano lessons, I got so thoroughly annoyed by the 12 variations on 'Kortjakje' that it took me years before I could admit that it was Requiem was quite wonderful after all. It was therefore with some hesitation that I signed up for a hefty series of concerts at the festival. Would the great composer manage to revenge himself?

Stadholder court

I start the weekend with a Mozart walk under carillon playing from the Grote Kerk. City carillonneur Gijsbert Kok compiled a new carillon book of Mozart arrangements for the occasion. The guide takes us along the places where Mozart stayed and played, including the Ridderzaal, the Jorisdoelen and the hotel where the 'Amadeus' building now stands. The picture emerges of a small The Hague that revolved entirely around the stadholder court and the elite; ordinary citizens, even the richest, were not welcome at concerts. Travelling was a visitation: it took the Mozarts a month and a half to travel from Dover to The Hague. The tour is at an entry level and keeps a leisurely pace; those who want further depth will do well at the app previously developed by New Dutch Academy and which also shows, for example, the opera houses of the time and the house of Kapellmeister Graf.

Festive Friday evening masses in the Kloosterkerk. The Haags Matrozenkoor sings the Krönungsmesse, the Residentie Bachkoor the Vesperae solennes de Confessore with different versions of the Ave Verum. Both amateur choirs do an excellent job and the soloists are outstanding, with soprano Nikki Treurniet standing out the most. This is definitely not Kortjakje's Mozart! The ends of each row of pews are reserved for choir members, but it is only when they stand up and start singing that you realise you are among the singers, very surprising.

Princess Caroline

Saturday: in an undeservedly half-empty Palace Church, pianist Daria van den Bercken and violinist Carla Leurs play Sonatas for Princess Caroline. It was this Caroline, wife of the later stadholder Willem V and gifted pianist, who had the Mozarts come to The Hague. In the first sonata, composed in The Hague, the violin plays only an accompanying role, while the parts in the second, much later sonata are equivalent; Mozart had better violinists available at the time and had further developed as a composer. Interesting, but too 'Mozartian' for me after a while. Very lively and appealing is the piano sonata with the 'Rondo Alla Turca', which Van den Bercken plays solo and which she also recently recorded on a Mozart CD. Cleverly, she manages to make a piece so flatly played sound like new.

Several churches will cooperate with a special service with their own church choir. After this service, the Houtrustkerk will welcome young pianist Claudette Verhulst from The Hague for a coffee concert. The programme includes the dreaded Kortjakje variations (officially Ah vous dirai-je, Maman). Needless to say, I have to go there! Half to my surprise, the variations turn out to have little to do with the technical rattling I remember.

Verhulst takes her own almost romantic, highly musical approach. Her former teacher, the pianist Rian de Waal, who died far too young, always supported her in choosing that direction. It is not until the tenth variation that I get the feeling 'now we know it'. Verhulst, who recently performed with Elsbet Remijn as the theatrical piano duo 'Beth & Flo' at the Grachtenfestival, also plays a Mozart rondo and a piece by Liszt. Wolfgang Amadeus never came so close to rehabilitation.

Later that afternoon, baroque legend Ton Koopman and his wife Tini Mathot perform Mozart's complete organ works on the monumental Bätz organ in the Lutheran Church. It involves as many as four pieces, mostly composed for mechanical organs. Works by Beethoven and others complete the programme. Whether it is because of the character of the pieces, which are not really for human players, or the high humidity the organ suffers from, the music does not come off well. The performance seems messy at times, Koopman accelerates anxiously here and there and manages to convey little passion with the sheer volume of notes. Again, despite the big name, no full hall; it seems that September's festival-overkill Mozart in The Hague has played tricks.

Among the events I did not attend, I still mention a demonstration of an authentic 18th-century fortepiano in Pulchri Studio, a children's performance with musical highlights, the Amadeus competition for young musicians and an evening of arias by soprano Johannette Zomer and Musica Poetica, ensemble of festival director Jörn Boysen. The latter evening partly jumps into the festival's only gap: there is no opera performance.

Dessert forms the Prinsjesdagconcert on Tuesday evening by the Residentie Orkest at the Zuiderstrandtheater. Apart from a new theatre, the orchestra also presents its new permanent conductor, Jan Willem de Vriend. In a short, accessible programme, he will show how close Mozart's youthful symphonies (e.g. the 'Hague') still are to Graf and other contemporaries, while later symphonies ('Haffner') have more complex and technical harmonies and melodies, but also a different set of instruments - without harpsichord, with timpani. Particularly funny is the potpourri Galimathias Musicum, written for the inauguration of William V in 1766.

Mozart rehabilitated?

Incidentally, the manuscript of this is kept at the Netherlands Music Institute and will be on display throughout this September month at the Hague Historical Museum. It is extraordinary to see the 10-year-old's handwriting, with father Leopold's minor corrections still included.

All in all, the festival is broad in scope, makes the 18th century come alive in The Hague and offers generally very good quality concerts. Given the only partially awarded subsidies, an extra great achievement.

But has Mozart been rehabilitated now? I can place him better in his time, both socially and musically. I have heard how cliché pieces can come fresh out of the wash again. I have enjoyed beautiful masses and sparkling piano music. But taste simply does not repudiate itself, and so a little remains as it was - after a while it often becomes to me anyway... 'too Mozart'!