Heritage
The De la Haye Ensemble contributed to the renewed attention for the oeuvre of the Bruges composer Joseph Ryelandt (1870-1965). Currently the repertoire of the De la Haye Ensemble contains a large part of Ryelandt’s chamber music and keyboard works.
Nocturne for cello and keyboard op. 64, 1916 ( 5 ′)
Cello Sonata No. 1 on. 22, 1898 ( 17 ′)
Cello Sonata No. 2 on. 66, 1917 ( 16 ′)
Cello Sonata No. 3 on. 132, 1944 ( 10 ′)
Trois morceaux pour clarinette et piano op. 17, 1897 (12’30)
Fantaisie pour clarinette et piano op. 40, 1904 (6’30)
Piano Sonata No. 6 on. 61, 1915 ( 16 ′)
Piano Sonata No. 7 on. 67, 1917 ( 22 ′)
Six Preludes for piano op. 62, 1915-1925 ( 9 ‘)
1er Nocturne pour piano op. 81, 1923 ( 5 ′)
2ème Nocturne pour piano op. 90, 1927 ( 5 ′)
3ème Nocturne pour piano op. 91, 1928 (3’20)
4ème Nocturne pour piano op. 93, 1929 (6’15)
5ème Nocturne pour piano op. 97, 1929 (5’20)
6ème Nocturne pour piano op. 126, 1939 (5’20)
24 Pensées musicales pour piano, op. 94 dans tous les tons major et minor ( 13 ′)
3 Préludes pour piano, op. 96, 1929 (8’30)
Sonata Fourth for Violin and Piano Op. 63, 1916 ( 13 ‘)
Fifth Sonata for violin and piano op. 71, 1918 ( 20 ′)
Sixth Sonatina for Violin and Piano Op. 84, 1926 ( 12 ‘)
Seventh Sonata for violin and piano op. 115, 1935 ( 15 ′)
Romance pour Violon et Piano op. 59, 1915 ( 7 ′)
Barcarolle for violin and piano in E-flat op. 95, 1929 ( 5 ′)
First trio for violin, cello and piano op. 57, 1915 ( 19 ‘)
Canon en trio pour piano violon et violoncelle, op. 70, 1918 ( 3 ′)
Second trio for violin, cello and piano op. 131, 1944 ( 17 ′)
Five equal-voiced choirs with keyboard on. 83, 1923 on texts by Guido Gezelle ( 16 ′)
Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)
Sonata for cello and piano, 1915, (10 ‘)
Nocturne and Scherzo for cello and piano, 1882, (6’)
Gabriël Fauré (1845 – 1924)
10th Nocturne in e minor. for piano, op. 99, 1908, (5’10)
11th Nocturne in F sharp for piano, op 104/1, 1913, (4’30)
Joseph Ryelandt (1870 – 1965)
4th Nocturne in E- flat for piano, op. 93, 1929, (6’10)
Barcarolle in E-flat for violin and piano, op. 95, 1929, (4’50)
Gabriel Fauré
5th Barcarolle in F sharp for piano, op.66, 1894, (6 ‘)
12th Barcarolle in E flat for piano, op.106bis, 1915, (3’20)
Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle op.120, 1923 (21 ‘)
Creations and collaborations
We are grateful to the composers Martin Valcke, Hannes Taljaard (S.A.), Pieter Schuermans, Luc Van Hove and Wim Henderickx for their cooperation and support.
Rondo and Gigue for violin and piano, (10 ′)
Wim Henderickx
Suite for violin and piano, 1988, (14 ‘)
Four Pieces for clarinet and string quartet, 1990, (14 ′)
2 Nocturnes for clarinet and piano, 1993, (10 ′)
Memento Mori for piano solo, 2005, (25 ′) and live electronics, inspired by the visual work of Ronald De Preter. Created by Bart Meuris, 25 06 2005, Lier Municipal Museum
Piano Trio, 2012, (15 ′)
Bowron Lake, 2012, (14 ′). Created on 11 October 2012, Chamber Music Hall Lemmensinstituut, Leuven
Confrontations
The fascination for water as a metaphor inspired several composers; Toru Takemitsu, Norbert Rosseau, Pieter Schuermans,…
The works Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) wrote from the 1980s onwards form cycles and are mainly devoted to ‘water’ (Rain Tree, Rain Spell, Rain coming,…) and ‘ dreams’ (Dreamtime, Dream / window, Rain Dreaming). The De la Haye Ensemble immersed itself in these ‘waterscapes’ that form an aesthetic and musical link between East and West.
Rain Tree Sketch for Piano, 1983, (3 ‘)
Rain Tree Sketch II for Piano, Celestially Light. In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen, 1992, (5 ′)
Between Tides for violin, cello and piano, 1993, (17 ′)
l ‘Eau passe is a special and extensive song cycle by Norbert Rosseau (1907-1975) from Ghent based on texts by Maurice Carême. A musical painting, apparently naive, but refined in style, structure and expression. Poetry and original music combining past achievements with experiments up to the 1950. A selection for 2 voices and four instruments. Rosseau’s interest in water is also evident in the work H²0.
Bowron Lake for clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano, 2012, (14’) by Pieter Schuermans refers in its title to a special adventure at the Canadian Bowron Lake, where Pieter Schuermans stayed for several weeks in the vast and unspoilt nature. Short, characteristic motifs of varying lengths are used as building blocks for a polyphonic fabric. Because of their different durations of 4, 5 and 7, they can also be fitted into a broad, encompassing measure. This results both in an interesting polymetric interaction between the motifs themselves and in a clear articulation of this broad measure, which encompasses the time span of the smallest common multiple of the motifs. This provides order and support while listening.
The phenomenon of a broad, sustaining time unit was explored by Pieter Schuermans in several ways. He coined this technique with the term Metapulse and developed it into a stylistic feature of his music in his doctoral research Chaotic Pulse, Pulsating Chaos. Created on 11 10 2012, Chamber Music Hall Lemmens Institute, Leuven.
Forgotten pearls – Franz Schubert
Despite Schubert’s fame, this programme contains some of the most beautiful and poignant pages of a genius Schubert. Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote an awful lot during his short life. His compositions are recognisable by graceful, lilting melodies, by abrupt contrasts of light and shadow, by strange and daring tonal relationships and by playing with simple dance movements. He handles all this with a sponaneity and ingenuity unparalleled.
Forgotten pearls introduces you to:
the Arpeggione Sonata in a minor, D821 (1824) for arpeggione – here cello – and piano. The first edition dates from 1871. The arpeggione was a six- stringed musical instrument with frets and was tuned like a guitar. It had a curved bridge so it could be bowed like a cello. After its invention around 1823, by Vienneses instrument makers Johann Georg Stauffer and Peter Teufelsdorfer, the instrument was very popular for a short period. Schubert’s arpeggione sonata was not published until 1871, 43 years after his death, when the instrument had long gone out of fashion.
the sonata in A major, D574, ‘Grand duo’ for violin and piano, from 1816-17 and published in 1851 as op. posthumus 162.
the ‘Fünf Variationen über ein Thema von Franz Schubert’,written in 1956 by the twenty-one-year old German composer Helmut Lachenmann (°1935). Schubert’s theme, D643, a German dance, opens this work. A short composition in which Schubert involves quite a few strange notes and tonal relationships. Lachenmann zooms in on this in his variations, incorporating Schubert’s peculiarities in an idiosyncratic way and using a dissonant tonal language. Sometimes fragments of the original dance are recognisable in the musical movement and form.
Notturno (also Adagio) in E-flat major, D897 for violin, cello and piano. The genesis of this work is vague. One suspects that it was composed in 1825 or 1826. Was this the start of a full-fledged trio? Were the other movements lost? In any case, this work is grippingly expressive while using the virtuoso piano style of J.N. Hummel and J.L. Dussek,
Le temps et l’éternité
“Musicien, j’ai travaillé le rythme. Le rythme est, par essence, change et division. Etudier le changement et la division, c’est étudier le Temps. Le temps – mesuré, relatif, psychologique – se divise de mille manières, dont la plus immédiate pour nous est une perpétuelle conversion de l’avenire en passé. Dans l’éternité, ces choses n’existeront plus. Que de problèmes! Ces problèmes, your les ai posés dans mon Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Mais à vrai dire, ils ont orienté toutes mes recherches sonores et rythmiques depuis une quarantaine d’années ”. Olivier Messiaen.
Wim Henderickx (1962)
2 Nocturnes for clarinet and piano, 1993, (10 ′)
Memento Mori for piano solo (live electronics), 2005, (12 ′), inspired by the visual work of Ronald De Preter. Created by Bart Meuris, 25 06 2005, Lier Municipal Museum
Piano trio, violin, cello piano, 2012, (15 ′)
Toru Takemitsu (1930 – 1996)
Orion for cello and piano, 1984, (12′30)
Between Tides for violin, cello and piano, 1993, (17 ′)
Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992
Two movements from Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Louange à l’éternité de Jesus, cello and piano, (12 ′)
Louange à l’immortalité de Jesus, violin and piano (8 ′)
Contrapunctus
For composers, mastery of counterpoint (having several voices heard against each other simultaneously) was the ultimate proof of a composers professional knowledge. ‘Contrapunctus’ brings music that overwhelms you like entering a cathedral; music that is not immediately comprehensible in all details, but which therefore becomes a metaphor for the elusive, the higher, the divine. Music that captures your perception, not because of its seductive lines or its beautiful harmonies, but because one theme shows the inevitability of its logic and development. And it is precisely that soberness and the creation of unity which will offer comfort.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Contrapunctus 13, forma recta, forma inverso from Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080, 1742-1750, (5 ′)
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Cello Sonata in D, op 102/2, 1815, (21 ′)
Johannes Brahms
1st Cello Sonata op. 38, 1862-65, (23 ′)
Dmitri Shostakovich
From 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87, 1950-51 (10-20 ′)
Choir and chamber music
Many composers from our past wrote fascinating choral works. The music was mostly in keeping with the Romantic tradition, was accessible and offered composers performance possibilities.
The De la Haye Ensemble would like to collaborate with choirs and combine vocal works with appropriate chamber music.
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Ein Deutsches Requiem op. 45, 1868 (1:14 ′). Version piano 4-hands
Joseph Ryelandt (1870 – 1965)
Five equal-voiced choirs with keyboard on. 83, 1923 on texts by Guido Gezelle ( 6 ′)
Lecture recitals – Storytelling concerts
A different way of contact with the audience is the starting point. Appropriate words and images place music with which we are no longer connected on a daily basis in a context that can be enlightening for us today.
Music in Bruges during the Great War
With works by Joseph Ryelandt and contemporaries. With the collaboration of historian and musicologist Dr. David Vergauwen.
Piano Quartets
Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet in ES op. 47, 1842, (28 ′)
Norbert Rosseau: Piano quartet op. Post., 1975, (18 ‘)
Piano Quintets
Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in ES, Op. 44, 1842, (31 ′)
César Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor, CFF 121, 1879, (36 ′)
Edgard Elgar: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84, 1918, (38 ‘)
Joseph Ryelandt: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 32, 1901, (23 ′)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, 0p. 57, 1940, (37 ′)
It is not surprising that Schumann’s music changed around 1850. Schumann was then troubled by agony and delusions.
The late chamber music works, eight works with surprising combinations of instruments, date from this period.
Schumann’s way of composing was restricted to the essence, which sometimes appears ascetic or sounds ‘unheimlich’,
like the third part of Märchenbilder.
Schumann and Kurtág share a musical experience with an almost unbearable intensity, a link with literature, the suggestion of the fragmentary, the primal force of the ‘Innere Stimme’ that Schumann believed to hear.
In the structure of Kurtágs ‘Hommage à R. Sch.’ from 1990, of which the first sketches date from the 1970s, there is also a relation with the six volumes of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. A work that also ends with an ‘Abschied’. Some parts are extremely short. They bear poetic titles that refer to Schumann’s literary world. The score is very detailed and contains a lot of clues to dynamics and character. The sound material often consists of traditional elements, put together in an original way. In the final movement, which lasts twice as long as the other five parts combined, Meister Raro (a Schumann figure) reconciles the polyphony of G. De Machaut with a Mahlerian funeral march into a Bach passacaglia. He uses Hungarian parlando-rubato and Webernian asceticism, until a pianissimo of the big drum makes the farewell final.
Sources: György Kurtág: Entretiens, textes, écrits sur son oeuvre. Contrechamps éditions, Genève, 1995. Lyrics by Jan Michiels accompanying the CD recording ‘Hommaga à R.Sch…’, Etcetera KC 4016. G. van der Leeuw: Schumann’s chamber music with piano. W. Brons: Thoughts on the late Schumann. Piano Bulletin 2006, 24th volume no. 3. EPTA Netherlands.
Robert Schumann (1810 -1856)
Fantasiestücke op. 73 for clarinet (cello) and piano, 1849, (12.30 ‘)
Märchenbilder op. 113 for viola and piano, 1851, (16 ‘)
Märchenerzählungen op. 132 for viola, clarinet and piano, 1853/54, (16 ‘)
György Kurtág (1926)
Hommage à R. Sch. on. 15d for viola, clarinet and piano, 1990, (9.30 ‘)
Live recording Chamber Music Hall Campus Lemmens, Leuven. Parts 4,5,6.
Jean Absil (1893 – 1974)
Hommage à Schumann op. 67 for piano, 1946, (5’30)
Jewish influences
After Shostakovich’s death, musicologist and journalist Solomon Volkov had the manuscript of his interviews with Shostakovich smuggled to the West and published under the title “Testimony.” In it he presents the composer as a dissident trapped in the grip of an iron regime. Thus, in the West of the Cold War, an all too welcome and even an abused portrait of the composer arose. Its significance in the music history of Russia of the last century is not yet entirely clear to our generation, partly due to the political opportunism that both the Russian and the Western world have eagerly exploited. Shostakovich tells Volkov: “To me the Jews became a symbol. All human defenselessness was concentrated in them. After the war I tried to reflect this feeling in my compositions. … When it comes to musical impressions, I think Jewish folk music made the deepest impression on me. I continue to love this music. It is very varied music, that can be cheerful outwardly, but is in reality sad. This property of Jewish folk music comes very close to my idea of what music should be like”.
Meanwhile, Shostakovich’s music testifies to a great artistry that had to develop under the stifling conditions of the Soviet regime. At the very least, it can be said that Shostakovich was fascinated by the expression of ‘serenely sublimated pain’. We can only surmise the real attitude of the composer, who must have believed in communism and who openly apologized because his work deviated too much from the course set by the authorities. His attitude contained both loyalty and intelligent resistance to the Soviet regime.
Sources: History of Russian Music, Francis Maes. 1996 Kritak / BRTN-VAR. Dmitri Shostakovich. Testimony. Memories of Dmitri Shostakovich, narrated and edited by Solomon Volkov, 1979. De Arbeiderspers publisher, 1981. p. 211-13. Text: Bart Meuris
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
Prelude and fugue in F sharp minor, op. 87/8, 1951, (8’30)
Trio No. 2 in E minor, op. 67 for violin, cello and piano, 1944, (28 ‘)
Seven Romances on Poems by Aleksander Blok, op. 127, 1967, (26’)
Piano Quintet in G major op. 57, 1940, (37 ′)
Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990)
Vitebsk, Study on a Jewish Theme. Violin, Cello, Piano, 1929, (13’30)
Jewish songs, arranged for piano trio, (arr. Bart Meuris), (10 ‘)