“"It's that time of year again," the people from the Leo Smit Foundation say to each other around this time, according to flutist and recently appointed artistic director of the foundation Eleonore Pameijer, at the beginning of this concert on Saturday, May 2nd, in the Amstelkerk in Amsterdam. That time of year is the beginning of May, when the Netherlands observes National Remembrance Day on May 4th and Liberation Day on May 5th. They are then called upon to perform memorial concerts everywhere. The foundation is committed to ensuring that those composers and their music, and the events of that time, are commemorated throughout the entire year rather than just then. And with a long tradition of events and publications, the foundation has been quite successful at this. The foundation is named after Leo Smit, who was murdered at the age of 42 in the extermination camp Sobibor in 1943.
The foundation has now existed for 30 years and focuses on the musical legacy of Dutch composers or composers living in the Netherlands whose music was banned by the Nazis. Some of these composers perished in the concentration camps. The foundation has also been focusing in recent years on composers from the former Dutch East Indies who were interned in Japanese camps.These are events that the late Basia Jaworski—see her music blog "Basia con Fuoco"—always looked forward to. When she could no longer attend due to illness, she asked others to write about them. Basia Jaworski herself came from a Polish-Jewish family partially exterminated by the Nazis.
Following my previous piece for Klassiek Centraal about the Dutch premiere of "The Passenger" by one of her beloved composers, Mieczysław Weinberg, a composer whose family was also murdered, this review is in a sense a second posthumous tribute to Basia. Thanks in part to the foundation, the work of Henriëtte Bosmans is now regularly performed, Arthur and Lucas Jussen have recorded works by Leo Smit, and Dick Kattenburg and for example Theo Smit Sibinga (who spent the war in Japanese captivity) are regularly heard on the radio. –Four works by Henriëtte Bosmans are now in the public top 400 of the NPO Klassiek broadcaster. And aside from the existence of an old recording of her second cello concerto with the BBC Philharmonic, in recent years her two cello concertos and her complete works for cello and piano have been released on the German CD label CPO, featuring cellist Rafael Wallfisch and the BBC Scottish Orchestra under conductor Ed Spanjaard, and pianist Ed Spanjaard respectively. The sold-out concert began with one of those works by Bosmans that are in the Classical Top 400, "Nuit calme" from "Trois impressions" The Passenger by one of her beloved composers, Mieczysław Weinberg, a composer whose family was also murdered, this review is in a sense a second posthumous tribute to Basia.
Thanks in part to the foundation, the work of Henriëtte Bosmans is now regularly on the repertoire, Arthur and Lucas Jussen have recorded work by Leo Smit, and Dick Kattenburg and also, for example, Theo Smit Sibinga (who spent the war in Japanese captivity) are regularly heard on the radio.
Four works by Henriëtte Bosmans are now in the NPOKlassiek station's public top 400. And aside from the fact that an old recording exists of her second cello concerto with the BBC Philharmonic, her two cello concertos and her complete work for cello and piano have been released in recent years on the German CD label CPO, with Rafael Wallfisch as soloist and the BBC Scottish Orchestra with Ed Spanjaard as conductor and Ed Spanjaard as pianist respectively.
The sold-out concert opened with one of those works by Bosmans that are in the Classical Top 400, Quiet Night from Three Impressions for cello and piano, from 1926. Cellist Lidy Blijdorp moved beautifully between emotionality and restraint, accompanied with lovely serenity by Tobias Borsboom on piano. Tobias Borsboom, the new artistic director of the foundation, as Eleonore Pameijer steps down. A work that also deserves a place in the great repertoire is the sonatine from 1959 by Fania Chapiro (1926-1994), who in her time was truly a major figure.
She was the daughter of a Russian-Jewish father and a Dutch mother and was born in Surabaya. As a pianist, she was a child prodigy. The family moved to Paris to give her the opportunity to continue her studies. There she studied with, among others, Nadia Boulanger and Wanda Landowska, nothing less than, and meanwhile she was already giving major concert performances. In 1939 the family settled in The Hague. During the war they went into hiding. But they survived. After the war, she resumed her career as a pianist with great success, also in the United States, and she continued composing. Later she also became a respected teacher. Dutch composers Joost Kleppe and Martijn Padding studied with her, as did Eleonore Pameijer. Notably, she was also one of the first in the Netherlands to specialize in the fortepiano, and she also made recordings, including concerts by Dussek and Schobert.
French influences resonate in her music, but in the piano sonatine there are also gamelan influences and in my opinion also influences from{{NOTRANSLATE_1}}; in any case, she had previously dedicated several of her works to Prokofjev. The second movement and the second half of the final movement certainly require Prokofjev-like piano virtuosity. The sonatine for flute and piano from 1962 is also lovely. Spectacular, partly due to surprising rhythmic effects, and played spectacularly, was the final movement, Danza. Vivo. Actually, Chapiro was never truly forgotten, but it's clear that her life would have taken a very different path if World War II hadn't happened. That goes for each of these composers, actually. And for so many others. They really ought to rediscover Chapiro in France and the US.
The Hungarian-Jewish Geza Frid (1904-1989) was indeed a major figure in his time. He had studied with Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967). In 1927 he fled to the Netherlands because of growing antisemitism in Hungary. From our country he embarked on a nationally and internationally successful career as a pianist and composer. But from 1941 onward he was forbidden to perform in public. He joined the artistic resistance and managed to survive the war. After the war he became once again one of the most performed composers in the Netherlands. But he too subsequently fell into obscurity, perhaps partly due to the rise of avantgardism, but perhaps also because as an originally Hungarian (and Jewish?) composer he no longer quite belonged? There is a beautiful photograph of Zoltán Kodály visiting him in Amsterdam in 1966. And shouldn't Hungary rediscover Frid? (And Romania, since he was born in the Hungarian-speaking part of Romania.)
In the 'Sonata in Five Pieces' for cello and piano from 1931, his Hungarian roots come through clearly. Blijdorp and Borsboom also play this piece with boldness, but also controlled intensity.
Rosy Wertheim (1888–1949), from a banking family, worked as a teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory and led several children's choirs, including the choir 'The Island Children' from an Amsterdam working-class neighborhood, and also several women's choirs, including that of the Religious Socialist Alliance. In 1929 she moved to Paris, where she would stay for six years. She received composition and instrumentation lessons from Aubert, composed there, and wrote about Parisian musical life for the Amsterdam socialist daily newspaper Het Volk. In her home she received Dutch artists, and Honegger, Ibert, Milhaud, and Messiaen were also guests there. Returning to the Netherlands, she went into hiding during the war. She survived, but died four years after the war from a serious illness. In her Three Pieces from 1939, surprisingly optimistic notes ring out. As a flutist, Eleonore Pameijer already has a long connection with the piece. Her CD recording of it with pianist Frans van Ruth dates from 1995, a year before the founding of the Leo Smit Foundation. What's remarkable is how, thanks to the foundation's work, you really do feel at home with all these composers and their music as a listener. Is there room for Wertheim to be rediscovered in France?
During his short life, Dick Kattenburg (1919-1944) was sometimes influenced by jazz, but the piece now performed, Romanian Melody for flute, cello, and piano from 1942, is somber and sustained. The title was actually supposed to be Hebrew Melody, but that was considered too dangerous, even though these pieces were only performed at secret concerts. Kattenburg, who had studied in Antwerp and The Hague before the war, was in the resistance during the war. He was betrayed a couple of times and escaped each time, but eventually he was arrested in 1944. Via Westerbork he was deported to Auschwitz where he was murdered or died of exhaustion—which under the circumstances was also a form of murder.
