This is the fifth volume in a valuable series devoted to Dutch
cello sonatas. Pijper, Röntgen, van Goens, Vermeulen and Escher
are some of those already covered and now we reach two composers
whose reputations are somewhat varied.
Henk Badings is the better known. The geographer and palaeontologist
followed his true path during his eventual musical studies —
with Pijper, as it happens, with whom the younger man fell out
over musical matters. The two sonatas are well worth reviving.
The earlier dates from 1929 and adeptly straddles the classical/romantic
stylistic divide. It’s a compact two-movement thirteen-minute
work, the second movement of which houses a doughty dance motif
amidst some melancholy vein of writing. There’s a little satiric
throwaway passage too. The second sonata followed in 1935, the
same year in which Badings’ Third Symphony was premiered by
Willem Mengelberg. This is a more fluent and malleable sonata,
occasionally hectoring, it’s true, but with the cello ruminating
a great deal of the time in the lower register in the Adagio,
which once again pursues a rather introspective line. The piano
writing is quite wide ranging and apt. The finale is an ambiguous
way to end things with hints of blue notes in the accompanying
piano figures, and the music rather slithering its way to a
close.
Sem Dresden was born in Amsterdam in 1881, and was thus over
a generation older than Badings. His training was the more conventional,
studying with Pfitzner in Berlin. On his return to his native
city he became a choral conductor and in time became director
of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, a position he was forced
to give up in 1941 when, as a Jew, he was stripped of his job
and went to live in the suburbs of the city. Badings took over,
though without malice, and for pragmatic reasons. In another
biographical twist, Dresden’s wife was employed by Badings as
the conservatoire’s senior singing teacher.
Dresden’s 1916 sonata is very different to the more progressive
Badings. Maybe Dresden imbibed some of Pfitzner’s Francophile
tastes because this sonata is a watercolour after the ambiguous
modernism of Badings. It sings warmly, and the piano’s fanciful
escapades give the ear plenty to enjoy. A contemporary critic
noted the ‘fragmentary’ and ‘hyper-modern’ element but to us,
I suspect, charm and warmth are evident instead. In 1942 he
wrote his second sonata. Here we see more French influence but
this time it’s Ravel, who is especially noticeable in the pizzicato
episode of the first movement. The central movement is terse—if
one reads an autobiographical element into this, one can’t be
blamed—with a tick-tocking effect that is emblematic, one feels.
The slow section that begins the finale is the expressive heart
of the sonata, with ensuing railway rhythms and a bout of real
introspection marking their way to a slow, unconsoled end.
The SACD has been very well judged spatially, and the documentary
booklet is helpful. The contrasting works and the contrasting
fortunes of both composers make for interesting and thoughtful
listening, especially when the performances are as inside the
music as they are here.
Jonathan Woolf
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Doris Hochscheid (cello)