Piet Mondrian wrote 22 letters to Willy Wentholt, a French language teacher from Amsterdam with whom he had a five-year flashback relationship. More than most other letters, these contain details about the artist’s emotional life. In addition, these letters are important as an account of Mondrian’s second period as an artist in Paris, shortly after the First World War, and his development as a member of De Stijl group. The letters that Willy Wentholt wrote to Mondrian seem to have been thrown away immediately after being read.

For writer Daantje Idelenburg and composer Niek Idelenburg, the absence of these letters was reason to create fictitious letters. A kind of Voix Humaine in which you do not hear the other voice either.

WW1 is an important part of Amersfoort’s history. Thousands of Belgians were accommodated in Amersfoort. But the Spanish flu that struck Mondrian also comes painfully close to the situation in our current pandemic. But it is also the smaller emotional matters. In one of his letters, Mondrian is sincere about his feelings, but Willy seems particularly upset that he insists on marriage. And what about his nickname? Piet the invisible. Letters to Mondrian offers a fictional but factually based glimpse into the emotional world of Piet Mondrian and Willy Wentholt.

Mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos and pianist Ernst Munneke are responsible for the performance.

Read along with the score