During the sixth edition of the Cello Biennale, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is a vibrant place to be. Immediately upon entering on the first floor you enter an atmospheric pop-up brasserie, market stalls are set up in every other nook and cranny. There is a selection of handmade cellos, bows, bridges, dampers and strings alongside a large selection of magazines, CDs and sheet music.
But above all, there is an incredible amount of music. The fringe concerts are even free of charge, making the festival accessible and attractive. Consequently, the audience is very mixed. Tuesday afternoon at five in the Great Hall, the string quartet Zapp4 plays with guest cellist Jérôme Pernoo; two hours later, Ivan Monighetti presents four of his students in the Small Hall. Both performances are very well attended, and at Zapp4 there are remarkably many young people in the audience.
Simple melodies
The adventurous string quartet blurs the boundaries between classical, world, jazz and pop music and has its own following built up that stirs loudly. The musicians play simple, tonal melodies with infectious enthusiasm. They underline the swinging rhythms with stomping, sing along lines and improvise ripping solos that recall the electric guitar of pop music. Too bad the five strings have some intonation problems.
Viola player Oene van Geel, the leader of Zapp4 explains after the first song that it was a pop song by Nirvana. Unfortunately, his words are largely unintelligible, a shortcoming that also afflicts the other introductions. A microphone would not have been a luxury. The other pieces also excel in sing-along and stompability, much to the delight of fans. But because of this measly sweetness, I soon developed a screaming hunger for more challenging fare.
High level students Monighetti
These were offered by Monighetti's four students at Basel's Musik-Akademie. Valentina Dobrovina plays a sonata by Paul Hindemith with utmost concentration and musicality. She takes her time to let the melodies blossom and intones even the fastest figurations flawlessly. Yet her cello refuses to sing: partly due to the acoustics of the Kleine Zaal, the sound remains as dull as her lacklustre instrument.
Minji Kim gets more resonance out of her instrument and plays a sonata by Zoltán Kodály with fervour. Remarkably, she adds an Asian touch to the more folk-music-like passages. Iago Domínguez Eiras defends a suite by Catalan cellist-composer Gaspar Cassadó with such commitment that a note does slip in the faster passages. But his musicality shines through and the audience embraces him gratefully.
Ayana Kamimura is his superior to Bunraku by Toshiro Mayuzumi. Gracefully, she weaves garlands of pizzicati and glissandi, at times making her cello sound like a koto, a Japanese zither. However, she breathes and sniffs so violently in the meantime that it seems like she has to force the notes out of her instrument. This is quite distracting.
Playing together, the four conclude Quaternion from Sofia Gubaidoelina, who turned 85 on October 24. She composed this piece in 1996 and has two of the four cellos tuned a quarter-tone lower. As in all her music, Gubaidoelina creates a breathing organism, ranging from barely audible flageolets to fierce fortissimi and mysterious rustles. Exciting is a passage in which the performers put away their bows and play strings and key with both hands. A splendid piece that I unfortunately could not hear in its entirety because the evening concert was starting.
Ratniece steals the show
This concert by Cappella Amsterdam conducted by Daniel Reuss was completely sold out. Ukrainian-Estonian Galina Grigorjeva impressed with Prayer for mixed choir and cello. While the ladies hum a tune extremely softly, Gregor Horsch plays a subdued melody, as if preaching a prayer. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's modest solo cellist has a noble tone and also knows how to strike the finest nuances.
Grigoryeva gradually adds more voices, fanning them out into a wondrous amalgam of Russian Orthodox church chant - including deep rumbling basses - and early European polyphony. At times, her piece recalls the music of Arvo Pärt.
Highlight of the concert is Fuoco Celeste From the Latvian Santa Ratniece. Crisp flageolets by cellist Monika Leskovar are echoed by the women's choir. Their ultra-high notes blend into a highly dissonant fabric with an unearthly glow. Is someone whistling there, or is that an aural effect generated by the many overtones?
Ghost Choir
Ratniece dishes us a huge range of sound spectra. The cello plays moaning glissandi while the choir murmurs, whispers, 'sneezes', or produces screeching outbursts that recall a flock of startled birds. High trills contrast with low resonant hums.
The 'heavenly fire' from the title grows into an all-encompassing dome of sound with the unsettling aura of a ghostly choir. This dwarfs the pieces by Jean Sibelius and Eriks Esenvalds; the Requiem by Fauré after the interval I left it at that.
Both Grigoryeva and Ratniece were present to receive generous applause. This added lustre to the evening and underlined the Cello Biennale's ambition to tread the less beaten path as well.
In the remaining four days, there is plenty to discover. On Wednesday 26 October, for example, the Dutch premiere of the elegant Cello concerto by Gilbert Amy and a world premiere by Guus Janssen. On Thursday 27, there is the One Page Composition Project with five short compositions by young composers and a world premiere by Rob Zuidam. Too many to mention. Find the complete programme here.
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In response to Thea Derks' review of Zapp 4's concert at the cello biennale in the Culture Press on 26 October 2016.
It was with growing amazement that I read your review of the Zapp 4 concert; it seems like you were at a different concert.
How embarrassing that as a reviewer you are so guided by your own tastes. That you failed to enjoy virtually the only adventurous concert of the biennial is a shame. But that your intention seems to have been to prevent curious music lovers from attending a concert by this string quartet in the future by means of the most vicious review possible is unforgivable.
In doing so, you are causing damage. I feel the need to remind you that it is your responsibility to write the most objective review possible based on facts, not to score cheap by spreading filth. You should be ashamed of yourself.
There is nothing to criticise about the first two paragraphs. From the third paragraph onwards, the piece is clearly coloured by your own opinion.
The 'following' (why don't you just write 'followers') is stirring loudly. You make it sound like a group of yelling
hooligans sat in the hall, while you could hear a pin drop. And yes, there was very enthusiastic clapping. By everyone, except apparently you.
'The musicians play simple, tonal melodies with infectious enthusiasm'. This is where your musical knowledge falls woefully short.
For unlike the vast amounts of tonal music that had passed by at the biennial, Zapp 4 actually stood out
by their unconventional harmonies and melodies in the compositions. In the solos, the musicians flew through all the
keys and functions with unprecedented ease and virtuosity. If you use the word 'easy' you either haven't listened,
either no understanding. Oene van Geel's compositions excelled in complexity. Influences can be heard from Carnatic music
and polyrhythms are used. Terms that I do not find anywhere in your review - perhaps you were unable to recognise all this,
otherwise you would not have written about 'sing-along-ability'. His compositions are insanely ingenious and show a tremendous understanding
of the instruments on which it was performed. You write about stomping, lines being sung along and ripping solos as if we were at the top of the charts.
In the whole concert, these were just a few bars. Did you actually attend the whole concert?
From my capacity as a professional violinist, I can say that the intonation problems you write so meanly about were not an issue.
I was in the hall with three professional cellists and all four of us found the intonation almost intimidating, as it was so spot on.
Even Emile Visser's three-part (!) cello playing was impressively pure.
If you had actually studied musicology you would have recognised one of the most iconic songs in pop history single-handedly:
Smells like teen spirit by Nirvana. That you need an introduction from Oene for that is shocking, and shows a disinterest
in music outside your alley that is unprecedented and unheard of within your profession. This immediately explains your inability to cover this concert properly:
you cannot possibly understand this music if you refuse to listen to things outside your extremely limited comfort zone. If you don't like contemporary music,
then stay away from these kinds of concerts and stop writing such rotten reviews about them that are full of nonsense coming from your conservative frame of reference.
You are so blinded by your sour opinion that you even forget to mention all the great things everyone was talking about in the corridors,
and which stood out so much: Jerome's beautiful full tone, the fantastic ensemble playing, the mad virtuosity, the diversity of the programme,
the playfulness, the fact that they compose and/or arrange their entire repertoire themselves, their unsurpassed timing, the bold choices, the variations, the
surprises and the jokes. I sincerely hope you apologise and revise your review.
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