The Lash of the Whip of Rudi Van Dijk

 

An important Premiere in Duesseldorf, Germany

 

The Premiere of the extensive Kreiten’s Passion in Duesseldorf of a new composition by Rudi Martinus

Van Dijk went unnoticed by the Dutch Press. However, the Dutch music magazine “Mens en Melodie” was present for the career high point of this Dutch/Canadian composer. Maarten Brandt discusses the background as well as the content of Kreiten’s Passion and reports on this concert event.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

The number of compositions written as a result of the horrors of the Second World War is exceptionally large. Well known examples are Ein Ueberlebender aus Warschau (1947-1948) by Arnold Schoenberg,

The War Requiem (1961) by Benjamin Britten, The First Symphony also named Versuch eines Requiems (1936-1945) by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Message to the Living by Hans Henkemans,and last but not least, The Anna Frank Cantata (1984) by Hans Kox.

 

Recently, the Culemborg born Dutchman, in spirit cosmopolitan composer, Rudi Martinus Van Dijk (1932–2003) finished his imposing 55 minute Kreiten’s Passion for Baritone Solo, Choir, Symphony Orchestra with text by Heinrich Riemenschneider (1924). The work was given its World Premiere on September 19, 2003, at the Tonhalle of Duesseldorf in performance with the internationally famous Baritone Andreas Schmidt, the Staedtischen Musikverein of Duesseldorf  (rehearsed by Marieddy Rossetto) and the Duesseldorf Symphony Orchestra under the direction of  Music Director John Fiore. Not only this concert, but also the next two performances of September 21 and 22 were sold out. Incredibly, a year ago Rudi Van Dijk was almost unknown here. However, the combination of this opus with Beethoven’s Eroica chosen by the music director turned out to be a golden formula. Each composition is of its own time as well as universal. Of its time because it came into being as the result of an actual event which made such an impression on the artist that it influenced the creative process. Universal because the subject matter is not bound by time as it can repeat itself at any moment. The universal language of music allows the composer to reveal its content within time as well as to transcend its earthly bounds.

 

The theme of Kreiten’s Passion is the tragic fate of pianist Karlrobert Kreiten during the Hitler regime.  A Dutch nationalist born in Germany during the First World War, Kreiten did not hide his sentiments toward the Nazis.  He paid for his beliefs in a drawn out process that culminated in his execution at the tender age of twenty-seven. With this senseless atrocity, Germany lost one of her most phenomenal musicians. Kreiten, who on the advice of  Conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler (with whom he later worked),went to study with Claudio Arrau and was admired everywhere for his Mozart, Brahms, Liszt and Chopin performances.  What is more, Kreiten composed as well.  He was an important advocate of the modern music of his day, as witnessed by the much talked about performances of  Stravinsky’s Petroushka Suite, Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and work from Othmar Schoeck. Kreiten’s last performance took place on March 22, 1943. An invitation to Florence to play one of his favorite pieces, Liszt’s Piano Concerto in E Minor, was not realized as he was unable to obtain an exit visa from the German authorities.  On May third, the Gestapo arrested him and on the night of September 7th, he together with 185 other prisoners was hung  by the Nazi executioners. A horrifying action that was undertaken from the ever-increasing pressure of the Allied bombardments.

 

The Lash of the Whip

 

The life of Karlrobert Kreiten has been central for many years in the oeuvre of  author /playwright Heinrich Riemenschneider.  In 1983, Riemenschneider wrote the play The Fall of Karlrobert Kreiten.  Many years later, when Riemenschneider happened to hear a musical composition by Rudi Van Dijk, he felt such a great artistic affinity with the composer that he decided to write a text for a composition which would depict the last year of Kreiten’s life.  In particular, this text would include the verdict, imprisonment, and death of Kreiten which would then be embodied in sound.

 

The final result of this intensive collaboration between Riemenschneider and Van Dijk resulted in Kreiten’s Passion.  As is the case with the ancient Passions in the Baroque, this score encompasses several layers.  There is the objective epic dimension in the form of a story that is being told by the Baritone and the Choir. In contrast to the story, stands a clear subjective colored layer, which expresses itself in seven instrumental interludes, depicting the moods and emotions of the main character to which Kreiten falls victim and of which the listener partakes.  The composer feels strongly and wants to underline the fact that the listeners allow the music to work as freely as possible within them in order to be transported to their own interpretation of the musical experience.

 

Another no less important element is the reference by the composer to three concertos for which Kreiten was acclaimed during his career: the well known Concertos in A by Mozart, the 1st Piano Concerto by Brahms, and the already mentioned Concerto in E Minor by Liszt. After a short, dark, and ominous introduction, there occurs a mini-piano concerto, in which, besides works from the above named composers, a citation from Van Dijk’s own Piano Concerto appears. (This concerto was premiered by Geoffrey Madge and the North Netherlands orchestra under the direction of Viktor Lieberman). Within the third movement of this concerto, there occurs a “lash of the whip.” In Kreiten’s Passion, the lash of the whip is the moment in which Kreiten’s brilliant career is brusquely struck down. The theatrical gesture of applause by the Choir gives this episode an extra sinister and bitter flavor.

 

Personification

 

Whomever may have thought this mini-piano concerto is a “Fremd-koerper” has totally missed the point.

The more the opus progresses, the more this mini-concerto with retroactive power appears as a presentiment. Certain sections infiltrate, in a subtle way, the instrumental interludes and the monologue of the Baritone Soloist who is the actual personification of Kreiten. A striking example of the coming together of music and text shows itself in the places where references are made to the daily program of the prisoner  (“my daily work cutting paper; before that, my finger exercises”) and especially in his memories just before the actual execution (“Bygone years…Wonderful memories…so many highlights in my musical career. The concert audiences have made me light-hearted”). Against the sober background of the strings’ chords, motifs are drawn from the woodwinds with enigmatic references to previous phrases, in particular those from Liszt’s Piano Concerto in E Minor. After the actual verdict has been given and the Baritone continues his story, Van Dijk smuggles, almost unnoticed and in such a masterly way, fragments of the ancient Dies Irae theme.  This section flows into a second coup de theatre, the crucial moment in which the Baritone having spoken the words, “After the prayer, I go my way to God strong and steadfast,” leaves the stage: a strong symbol that speaks to the imagination of Kreiten’s walk to the gallows. In the final chorus and choral (a device that reminds one of Bach’s St. John’s Passion), the intrinsic message of Kreiten’s Passion is confirmed. The message is loud and clear that only by taking a stand against evil will humankind have a better existence on this Earth. The fact that the choral ends on an unresolved chord and the double basses in the secunde punctuated by the rhythmic motif in the timpani are still audible is a sign that humankind hopefully will evolve in time to this truth secure in the knowledge that they will be liberated from any form of terrorism.

 

Transparency

 

Although Van Dijk’s Kreiten’s Passion has been written for a full symphony orchestra, including an extensive timpani section, the first attribute of distinction one notices is the enormous transparency. There is not a moment where the audibility of the text is compromised.  If there are climaxes, they are in general, manifested in places where the vocal element is absent. The gestiek of the choir parts is often dramatic and reminds one of the passages of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron, a score which Van Dijk should know well having studied with Schoenberg pupil, Max Deutsch. The string orchestra functions in many instances as an intriguing harmonic basso continuo for the Baritone Soloist.  It also functions as the décor against which background the woodwinds and several solo strings (cello) display their motifs. The style of singing of the Baritone is quasi-parlando which is aimed at audibility.  This singing becomes melismatic when the drama unfolds. For example, the episode that precedes the execution: “The hangmen work day and night.”  Furthermore, it has to be emphasized that Van Dijk’s work is eclectic in the best sense of the word. Not only because of the references to music by Mozart, Brahms and Liszt, but especially because of  the background reminiscent of the Passions of Bach.  The expressive choir is rooted in the Viennese expressionistic tradition.  At first glance this may seem strange, but the musical/textual presentation reminds one of the epic music theatre exercised by Hindemith (Lehrstueck based on Brecht’s text from 1929).  Along with this presentation is an almost continuously manifested mix of tonality and atonality which has not at all led to a fragmented totality.  This successful combination is due in principle to the use of simple musical elements such as the kleine secunde in the double basses and the punctuated rhythm of the timpani. These elements serve as a solid cadre within which one can speak of a rich and expressive sound language. A sound language from which every hint of false sentiment has been strictly avoided, an ever present danger with these kinds of compositions. By the way, the presence of choral themes in Van Dijk’s oeuvre is not unusual. For instance, they play an important role in his Violin Concerto (1983-84), one of the most Bergian ever written. His Concerto together with the Concertos of Tristan Keuris and Hans Kox belong to the best of this genre written in our country during the second half of the twentieth century. Besides Kreiten’s Passion, the expressionistic side of Van Dijk’s style is strongly central in his work The Shadowmaker, which was especially written for the well-known Canadian Baritone Victor Braun (l936-2001). Without doubt, Kreiten’s Passion is a musical testament in which the various strands within Van Dijk’s oeuvre come together in a surprising manner.

 

Without precedent

 

The World Premiere of Kreiten’s Passion was a musical event of the first order. The pre-publicity for this premiere by the German Press was as voluminous as those only accorded to important performances of Louis Andriessen in our country.  Also the various organizers had created an impressive exhibition about the life of Karlrobert Kreiten and an extensive website (www.fkoester.de/kreiten/home/seite1.htnl). Besides these preparations, there was, before the concert in the Tonhalle, a grand reception given by the Dutch Ambassador to Germany, Dr. Nicolaas van Dam,who had flown in especially from Berlin for this concert. It was an illustrious gathering during which many high placed dignitaries from neighboring countries presented themselves and through whom cultural and community contacts were strengthened.

 

Great absentees noted were Muziekgroep Nederland and the Dutch Press. But this does not have to surprise anyone. The distance to Duesseldorf and to whichever city outside Holland, certainly for the major Dutch music scribes, already has been for many decades an impossible gap to bridge. And of course a Premiere of a Dutch Composition, for which a large Concert Hall in one of Germany’s most important cities was sold out three times, for which the German Press from all over the land turned out; in short, an event that up to now has been almost without precedent for a work of Dutch origin outside its borders, for that you don’t come out of your bed. Above all else, there seems to exist an inexplicable connection, time and time again, of the European esprit de corps and the tendency of the local press, when it comes to newsgathering, to concentrate exclusively on the most regional areas. That is well and good for the choir of housewives in Lesser (smallest village in Holland), but pretty bad for the national and in particular international music life of Holland.

 

 

Notes: 1. The father of Karlrobert Kreiten was the Dutch Pianist Theo Kreiten, who was married to singer Emmy Barido. The family moved to Duesseldorf a year after their son was born in Bonn.

           2. According to the composer, during the introduction and epilogue the double basses represent the zooming of hundreds of Allied bombers which  flew nightly high over the Netherlands on their way to Germany.  The timpani with muted sounds represents the  flak from the German ground troops. Lying under the blankets as a child, he experienced security in the ensuing silence, listening to the reassuring sound of the church’s bell clock. This ringing bell is briefly audible during the beginning of the Kreiten’s Passion in the piano, just before the start of the so-called ‘mini piano concerto’.