In 2006, music critic Erik Voermans had an interview with composer Klaas de Vries. This was prompted by his choral work Stimmen-Engführung, originally intended for a music festival in Berlin dedicated to poets Friedrich Hölderlin and Paul Celan. The RIAS Kammerchor had commissioned the work, but a lack of sufficient rehearsal time prevented its performance. It remained at apologies. However, the premiere took place shortly thereafter, at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on 21 October 2006, by Cappella Amsterdam under the direction of Daniel Reuss as part of the NTR ZaterdagMatinee. Jan Zekveld had made room on 1 March of the same year for Kees Vlaardingerbroek as artistic director.
In the interview, De Vries did not present his most optimistic side. He found it very difficult to function as a composer in society. That everything was being tampered with, that everything more complicated than a shout or one-liner had to defend itself and this was also clearly noticeable in classical music. Then there were the orchestras and broadcasters that backed out, with the ZaterdagMatinee as a major exception. Even in the newspapers, there was far less to read about Dutch music than had been the case before. Where did that come from? Did people really no longer want to hear that music? Was it cold feet? In recent years he had received composition commissions mainly from abroad: 'Nothing at all happens with my pieces in the Netherlands.'
De Vries also saw it in what he called the 'intellectual elite'. Writers and essayists who focused on major subjects such as war and clashing cultures, and sometimes it was about art, but usually about literature and never about music again. 'That was different with someone like George Steiner. But the current elite talks about pop music. I think the proportions are lost. Maybe we need to go underground again. Or man the barricades.' Thus De Vries.
In 2013, a follow-up interview took place. De Vries, now 68, spoke plainly: his audience was very small, even within the walls of modern music. If he thought he had composed something very accessible, he repeatedly turned out to be mistaken because people still found it too difficult. His ultimate conclusion: that he composed for himself, with the only relevant question for him being: does it work? 'But even if it works, that's still no guarantee of success. If you want to be successful, you have to go the way of Einaudi, but I don't know if that has anything to do with music anymore.'
On the new album Two Sonatas multiple paths come together. First of all, there is Jan Zekveld, the initiator, who by way of introduction recalls the following about Klaas de Vries' Piano Sonata:
'The Piano Sonata by Klaas de Vries had been lying in my cabinet for more than thirty years. Once, English pianist Rolf Hind had made a recording at the request of the BBC for a project that resulted in Three great pianosonatas of our century, nothing less than that. The other pieces [were] by Carter and Barraqué. Over the years, Klaas seemed to have almost lost his interest in the Sonata, which has no equal in Dutch piano literature. No one could have performed it, either interpretatively or technically. The first part with its strange silences, the second with its cascades of figures, up to extremely elevated dynamics and tempi, an inferno.
The Sonata continued to intrigue me and when I ran into pianist Bobby Mitchell, I did not fail to bring the piece to his attention. After careful consideration, he even agreed to play it, thinking he would need a year for it.
During that period there were countless sessions and try-outs with the composer, examining every detail meticulously bar by bar, holding the how and why of every note up to the light, weighing the smallest nuance. Also in Klaas' mind did the Piano Sonata come back to life in all its extremity. Moreover, I had never realised how much this piece for the composer had known an equally extreme model, Beethoven's last piano sonata op. 111. How visionary, contemporary, to this day. And from there my idea was born to record both works with a particularly original and unconventional musician, Bobby, who moreover masters both domains, the modern concert grand for De Vries and the hammerklavier for Beethoven. Precisely the choice for a keyboard from Beethoven's time, a Conrad Graf from around 1827, could make even more audible, almost tangible, how much the composer pushes the very uttermost limits of his instrument and performer. In this context I wanted to bring the Piano Sonata of Klaas de Vries to sound.'
For those who did not or barely experience those turbulent, if not turbulent times: much can be read on the internet about Jan Zekveld and the many roles he played in the music business, particularly in de Volkskrant and Trouw. In the NRC he was characterised as 'headstrong, creative and uncompromising', this highly successful artistic director of the ZaterdagMatinee from 1983 to 2006, with a break of a few years in which he was artistic director of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where he left in 1996.
In 2006, Zekveld left the ZaterdagMatinee. His successor, Kees Vlaardingerbroek, stepped into a well-prepared bed upon his arrival on 1 March 2006, for the programming for the 2006-2007 season had already been established under Zekveld. The score at that time: over 1300 matinees, of which Zekveld had programmed almost half. In that final year, Zekveld had already programmed the aforementioned Stimmen-Engführung by Klaas de Vries.
Zekveld has entered Dutch music history primarily as an artistic director and programmer, in which capacities he has served many organizations and institutions (including the Music Center for the Broadcasting Company). Less well known are his performances as a pianist, also together with Klaas de Vries as a piano duo during the period 1965-1972. Two Sonatas is regarded as a tribute to this old fellow student on his eightieth birthday.