A critic with a poisonous pen, a conductor with a traditional view of music and an orchestra with international allure that is threatened with collapse: the Utrecht City Orchestra. These are the main players in a 100-year-old musical drama. Both ruffians, Utrechts Dagblad reviewer Willem Pijper and conductor Jan van Gilse, also composed quite well. Exactly 100 years ago, the conflict came to a head. Reason enough for the Utrecht Rietveld Ensemble to perform music by both gentlemen in one concert.
The Utrecht City Orchestra has a special history. The orchestra has its roots in the music corps of the city’s militia, the city’s civic guard of old. The orchestra was founded after a visit by Napoleon Bonaparte to the city. Oboist Frank van Koten: “He thought it necessary to give an army parade on the Maliebaan. But what made an even bigger impression was the brass band, which was completely new to the Netherlands. Everyone wanted wind bands. And that was a prelude to the Utrecht City Orchestra.
The Utrecht City Orchestra was founded in 1894. It soon had international allure. Composers such as Edvard Grieg, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms came from all over Europe to Utrecht to conduct their own music. The orchestra also played folk music, in a pavilion in the Tivoli park. This meant that broad sections of the public had to come into contact with classical music. Frank: “Everyone wanted to be there; there was an enormous eagerness for that music. There wasn’t much else out there. There was no radio or TV. It was entertainment.”
The Tivoli concert hall is also in the park. There, the orchestra played pioneering new music by Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. In 1917 the orchestra needed a new conductor. The eye fell on Jan van Gilse, a successful composer and violinist who had won his spurs in Germany. He only had the misfortune that the city’s most important newspaper, the Utrechts Dagblad, had appointed a new critic, the young composer and pianist Willem Pijper, who was born in Zeist. Frank: “At first he wrote nice reviews, but they became increasingly severe and vicious, especially about the conductor Jan van Gilse.”
Willem Pijper found Van Gilse’s choice of music too traditional. Van Gilse had worked in Germany for years and therefore chose German composers. Pijper thought the orchestra should play work by modern French composers. The Utrechts Dagblad was at that time the most important news source in the city. Bad reviews kept audiences away in droves. That was disastrous for the orchestra, which depended mainly on ticket sales for its income.
Deeply affected by the bad reviews, Van Gilse put the orchestra’s management on the spot. Frank: “Van Gilse refused to conduct when Willem Pijper was in the audience. In 1922 Van Gilse gave up and left as conductor.” A hundred years later, the Rietveld Ensemble plays music by the composers who quarreled. They also play works by other composers from that time, such as Julius Röntgen. The concerts are on 23 and 24 April in the Marnixzaal on the Domplein in Utrecht.
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