Wagner’s prelude to the third act of Tristan und Isolde breathes the endless longing for redemption, a wave-like motion between hope and ruin. The Russian composer Anton Arensky wrote his String Quartet No. 2 as a tribute to Tchaikovsky, full of melancholy and introspection—music that unfolds slowly and taps into extra layers, also due to its unusual string quartet instrumentation (one violin, one viola, and two cellos). Where the instrumentation shrinks, the music dives even deeper: Sofia Gubaidulina’s Duo Sonata for bassoon and baritone saxophone lets two voices circle each other darkly, like spiritual and unpredictable undercurrents. In Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie for solo piano, a sunken cathedral slowly rises from the sea, as memory and myth in one. 

A special moment in this concert is the world premiere of Opwellingen (Impulses), the new string quartet by Celia Swart, specially commissioned by the Dudok Muziekdagen. In Opwellingen, she lets the string quartet drift into the undercurrent of consciousness, where heavy, stony objects lie as a metaphor for fixed beliefs. Even there, light will eventually shine: a transformation that will utilize the full palette of the string quartet. 

Interwoven throughout the program, Ellen ten Damme sings songs by Alban Berg and Kurt Weill, in which the unspoken carries the greatest eloquence. Schubert’s Gesang der Geister über den Wassern forms the soulful centerpiece of this program, with a starring role for the Kampen Boys Choir. In Goethe’s original text, the human soul moves restlessly, carried or cast down to earth by invisible forces, only finding peace when it returns to its origin. In this way, Goethe whispers a tribute to humanity as part of an eternal, flowing nature.

Program:

• R. Wagner – Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 (arr. Max Knigge) – Prelude to Act 3
• K. Weill – The Threepenny Opera (arr. Konrad Koselleck) – The Ballad of Mack the Knife
• A. Arensky – String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35 – I. Moderato
• S. Gubaidulina – Duo Sonata (1977) for bassoon and baritone saxophone
• C. Debussy – Préludes, Book 1 – X. La cathédrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral)
• C. Swart – Opwellingen (Impulses / Surges) (World Premiere)
• F. Schubert – Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, D. 714 (Song of the Spirits over the Waters)
• Nina Hagen / Ellen ten Damme – Naturträne (Nature Tears) (arr. Konrad Koselleck)

Concert is a part of the Dudok Muziekdagen Kampen.