Now in his mid-fifties,
Peter-Jan Wagemans (www.peter-janwagemans.com)
has a sizeable output to his credit,
in which works for orchestra and ensemble
have the lion’s share. One of his first
acknowledged works is the Symphony
Op.3 composed as early as 1972,
whereas his last essay in the genre
is De Zevende Symfonie
("The Seventh Symphony") under
review completed in 1999. However, with
the notable exception of his Symphony
No.6 "Panthalassa" for
large wind ensemble written in 1994,
there are no other works with that title
in Wagemans’ list of works. Instead
there are four works for various ensembles
with or without voices sharing the nondescript
title of "Muziek" (i.e.
just plain "Music"), which
are in fact the ‘missing’ symphonies
in his output. His last symphony (so
far) De Zevende Symfonie
in five strongly contrasted movements
and playing for fifty-five minutes is
the longest contemporary Dutch symphony
so far. The only equivalent that I can
think of is Peter Schat’s De hemel
Op.37 (1989/90), a large-scale
theme and variations playing for a little
under fifty minutes. As is often the
case with Wagemans’ music, the Seventh
Symphony is scored for large orchestral
forces, including a pair of Glockenspiels,
Wagner tubas and two bugles (on opposite
sides of the orchestra). The five movements
draw their inspiration from various
sources, although the end result is
a purely abstract piece of music, that
may be appreciated without any prior
knowledge of these sources. The first
movement Über’m Sternenzelt
obliquely alludes to Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony. This rather long movement,
in which the Glockenspiels suggest some
vast empty world is followed by a comparatively
short Scherzo (Het zwarte licht en
het heldere duister, i.e. "The
dark light and the bright darkness")
that now briefly alludes to Beethoven’s
Seventh Symphony and moves forward forcefully,
though ending rather abruptly. This
leads into another long movement Mehr
Licht! ("More Light"),
that may be considered as the slow movement
of the symphony although the music is
not without contrast. It ends with a
long ethereal cantilena played by the
first violins. The fourth movement,
titled after Dali’s painting The
Future commits Sodomy with the Horns
of its own Memory is a potpourri
using typical Wagemans technique: a
musical mosaic made of several musical
quotes in a collage of some sort. The
quotes include the opening canon from
Webern’s Symphony, albeit
put in such a context as to be completely
disguised and – by so doing – creating
a totally different type of music. It
somewhat functions as a second, whimsical
and rather enigmatic Scherzo. The final
movement Het grote lied ("The
Great Song") reunites various elements
from the preceding movements, that seem
to "fall into place like pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle" (Maarten Brandt).
This final movement, however, is really
mostly what its title says - a grand
song for orchestra. Wagemans’ monumental
Seventh Symphony is a considerable achievement
in its own right, albeit one that does
not reveal all its secrets in a single
hearing, which makes this release the
more welcome.
The somewhat shorter
and slightly earlier De Stad en
de Engel ("The City and
the Angel") of 1996 is a sort of
tone poem inspired by James Ensor’s
huge, colourful canvas The Entry
of Christ into Brussels in which
Christ on his donkey is seen as a tiny
figure amid a numerous, grimacing crowd.
Masks play an important part in Ensor’s
oeuvre. "My intention here was
to suggest a medieval feast day, although
with music that would never have been
played like this in the Middle Ages"
(the composer’s words). The bustle of
the crowd is again suggested by the
use of musical mosaic, with rapid changes
between musical styles. The central
figure of Christ is represented by a
soft chorale at the centre of the piece.
The composer’s initial idea was to have
the "little holy figure" winning
at the end. However, the composer felt
that the work was somewhat incomplete,
and he added a "much more forbidding
conclusion", in which the crowd
eventually has the last word.
It is not always easy
to describe Wagemans’ music. It clearly
stands apart from many current musical
trends of his time. I suppose that it
might be best described as "post-modern"
or something like that. Nevertheless,
Wagemans has a real gift for amalgamating
different styles, making the whole unmistakably
his own. These two works, as well as
much of his output, displays both his
love for the orchestra and his mastery
in writing for orchestral forces, small
or large. These fine performances caught
in excellent recorded sound serve his
colourful music well.
Hubert Culot
for details
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Hans
Leendersa; Micha Hamelb
