Stamping Ground (for Angels) | Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk

2011a

Recorder quartet SATB

ca. 4'

Based on the estampita Tre Fontane, and dedicated to Edition Tre Fontane, Münster, Germany, in celebration of their 10th anniversary.
A recording by the Flanders Recorder Quartet, together with Catch (an Angel) and Kadanza has appeared in the fall of 2012.

Numerous performances interpret the estampita Tre Fontane as a kind of Turkish-Arab (well, melismatic, quasi micro-intoned) music, which is quite nice (see the videos below). However, I have snatched it from outside the gates of Vienna, or even medieval Florence, and gave it the more ‘Viennese classical’ turn of a light hearted rondo…
This also means that the Angels mentioned in the title are not the large and stately Seraphimic ones that radiate awe and inspire Holy Books. They are the small, neo-classical Cherubim and Putti that toy with things of love and beauty and caress them like near-heavenly pet animals.

The introduction says that:

“These little Angels, as lightly as being a being of light permits, dart, frisk, caper and gambol
on what is their favoured gathering place and sacred playing ground:
Time, the fields of History covered by that wide white expanse of timeless eternity
from which they descend now and then to enjoy and enlighten temporal objects.
Here, they toy with the estampie Tre Fontane, a dance from what we sometimes call our
Dark Ages but what for Angels must have been a time of spiritual rapture.
Innocently, they stroke and caress the outline of the estampie’s head and tail,
like a pet animal’s, enjoying in their own way it’s artifice that celebrates constant re-Creation.”

Just as Catch (an Angel) was a gift to Brisk Recorder Quartet, this piece too is a birthday gift: to Heida Vissing and Ronald Brox of Edition Tre Fontane to celebrate their publishing house’s 10th anniversary.”

A nice example of a ‘southern Mediterranean’ rendering of Tre Fontane is that of Ensemble Oni Wytars:

I think that even a more Notengetreue rendering already sounds quite exotic, as is shown by this one by Hanneke van Proosdij and Peter Maund:

About me

Musical beauty and simplicity are my aim. My guiding principle is the classical European tradition. Folk music, church music and Early Music are the sources to which I return to seek new melodic beauty. I value musical craftsmanship and intuition highly. Musicians are my first audience. It is their virtuosic interplay, comic or dramatic, but always emotionally charged, that is the musical theater my music presents to the listener. The sounds I cherish most are those that through the musician’s hearts, breath and hands bear the mark of their personal interpretation.
Chamber music is, therefore, central to me – I have written for the Bennewitz Quartet and Harry-Imre Dijkstra, the Skampa Quartet, Rosanne Philippens, the Bartók Trio, the Utrecht String Quartet and many others.
My chamber music for recorders has a special place in my work and is played in large numbers by amateurs. The CD Kadanza is a fruit of decades of collaboration with the best professionals who were often also the best teachers.
For me, choral music is also a species of chamber music. It should challenge and offer musical satisfaction to those many amateur singers – that I am one of.

My music features individual performers – to convey a thought, an emotion, and a story to the audience in a virtuoso and intense fashion.

In rehearsal and performance, the performers and I learn a lot from each other. Sometimes their improvisations are included in the musical story. Scores will always be adapted to their needs.

The interplay between performer and composer is absolutely essential in newly written music. As is the interplay between sponsor and composer.

Would you like me to rehearse with you or do you want to know more about a piece?

Do you want me to write a piece for a particular line-up or event?

Please let me know and I will contact you.

Besides composing, I lecture in New Music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, with a focus on chamber music and music aesthetics. Some of the writing and thinking that I do there can be found in the ‘text’ section.