Incantatie IV
Jeroen van Veen, Sandra van Veen, Tamara Rumiantsev, pianos
Incantatie IV
For keyboard (and other) instruments
1987-1990
Incantatie IV is a melodious and orchestrally repetitive piece for several keyboard instruments. It’s one of the pieces the Ten Holt wrote for mutliple keyboards from 1976 until 1998. Incantatie IV is stands out in complexitiy, where Canto Ostinato only have five staves, Incantatie IV has fifteen layers. Left free by the composer on certain aspects of the composition, like timbre and pitch, style of play and tempo, number of voices or instruments, and number of times certain parts are repeated, the final form is decided upon on stage by the performers. The length of the composition is undetermined. This music exists in a grey area between composed and improvised music. Ten Holt comments: "Although there is a score with prescribed notes, the performer can still decide when these notes will turn into sound. Where notes appaer there might be a silence, on the other hand the score might show no notes, and yet there can be sound." The composition is divided into seven sections, uninterruptedly flowing into each other. Jeroen van Veen says: "The music sounds as if looking at the sea for a long time; the waves, the rays of sunshine and the air all influence the glittering and different colours of the sea. Characteristic for this spectrum of changing possibilities is continuous motion like a perpetuum mobile." This composition can therefore be regarded as Work in Progress.
Simeon ten Holt
The composer Simeon ten Holt was born in 1923 and died in 2012 in Bergen (N.H.). He studied compostition with Jacob van Domselaer (1890-1960) and later at the Ecole Normale with Honnegger and Milhaud in Paris. Ten Holt was co-founder of the Werkgroep Hedenhaagse Muziek (Working Group Modern Music) in Bergen. Ten Holt´s social involvement, philosophical attitude and literary qualities became obvious in a series of articles on music which he published in the Raster magazine between 1968 and 1973. Ten Holt has an extensive oeuvre which can be divided in various periods. During the first period he developed his musical identity by liberating himself from the influence of his tutor Van Domselaer. The two piano works Bagatellen and Cyclus aan de Waanzin (Cycle to Madness) are typical of this process. The second period includes music which is contrued in the basis of theoretical principles, where notes are determined by means of serialistic technique. Nowadays Ten Holt has returned to the instrument with which he started composing: the piano. This has resulted in a series of compositions for several pianos lasting an entire evening: Canto Ostinato (1976-1979), Lemniscaat (1982-1983), Horizon (1983-1985), Incantatie IV (1987-1990) and Méandres (1995-1997).
www.simeontenholt.com
Sandra van Veen
Sandra van Veen studied with the Norwegian pianist Håkon Austbö at the Conservatory in Utrecht where she graduated in 1992. She made her debut with her husband Jeroen in a performance of Canto Ostinato during Lek Art (Culemborg). The concert was live recorded and the CD has sold in more than 40 countries worldwide. After this, many concerts and CDs followed. Sandra is very dedicated to the music of Ten Holt, but nowadays she also plays other kinds of music, ranging from the classical music like Carmina Burana, The Planets, Rhapsody in Blue, to Tangos and Tubular Bells for four pianos. She did the premiere of several pieces written by Dutch composers like J. Andriessen (in Russia) and Ten Holt (in Canada). Concerts and recitals brought Sandra from Miami to Novosibirsk. She takes part in many projects in Holland as well as abroad. She recorded many CDs on various labels. Several concerts and projects have been broadcasted on radio, television and the Internet. Finally, Sandra is a well known, passionated piano teacher as well. Sandra van Veen is a co-founder of the Lek Art Foundation and the Simeon ten Holt Foundation. She runs her own company ‘De Walnoot’ based in Culemborg.
www.pianoduo.org
Jeroen van Veen
Jeroen Van Veen (1969) started playing the piano at the age of 7. He studied at the Utrecht Conservatory with Alwin Bär and Håkon Austbö. In 1993 he passed the Performing Artists' Exam. Van Veen has played with orchestras conducted by Howard Williams (Adams), Peter Eötvös (Zimmermann), Neal Stulberg (Mozart & Bartok) and Robert Craft (Stravinsky). He has played recitals in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia & the USA. Van Veen attended master classes with Claude Helffer, Hans-Peter & Volker Stenzl and Roberto Szidon. He was invited to several festivals; Reder Piano Festival (1988), Festival der Kunsten in Bad Gleichenberg (1992), Wien Modern (1993), Holland Dance Festival (1998) Lek Art Festival (1996-2007). Van Veen recorded for major Dutch Radio- and Television companies like AVRO, NOS, IKON, NCRV, TROS/Internet, WTBC-TV & Radio (Florida, U.S.A.) and Moscow Television. In 1992, Van Veen recorded his first CD with his brother Maarten as the internationally recognized Piano duo Van Veen. In 1995 Piano duo Van Veen made their debut in the United States. They were prizewinners in the prestigious 4th International Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami, Florida. After this achievement they toured the United States and Canada many times. The documentary "Two Pianos One Passion" (nominated with an Emmy Award 1996) documents them as a duo. The various compositions by Van Veen may be described as ‘Minimal Music’ with different faces, crossovers to Jazz, Blues, Soundscape, Avant-Garde, Techno, Trance and Pop Music. Currently Mr. Van Veen is director of Van Veen Productions, Chairman of the Simeon ten Holt Foundation, Pianomania Foundation and artistic director of several music festivals in Amsterdam. Culemborg and Veldhoven. He is also active in the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition based in Miami. Over the last 20 years Van Veen recorded more than 90 CD’s and 5 DVD’s for several labels (Mirasound, Koch, Naxos, Brilliant Classics) and his own label PIANO. Being a leading promotor of minimal music, and specific ‘Canto Ostinato’, his audience appreciates his feel for special occasions and inventions. In 2010 he trademarked his successful so called ‘ligconcert’. The recording of Les Noces (Stravinsky) for Naxos was stated in the New York Times as " the best recording ever".
www.jeroenvanveen.com
Tamara Rumiantsev
Tamara Rumiantsev was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, as daughter of a Russian father and an Indonesian mother. She studied for her Piano Performance degree at Utrecht School of the Arts with Norwegian pianist Håkon Austbø. She graduated summa cum laude and went on for master classes at Mozarteum Salzburg with Tatiana Nikolaeva, a pupil of the great Russian pedagogue Goldenweiser, and with French pianist Germaine Mounier. Earlier she took part in master classes of Peter Feuchtwanger, whose principles on piano technique fascinated her.
In London she studied at Royal College of Music with Yonty Solomon and in New York with Nina Svetlanova (herself a pupil of Heinrich Neuhaus) and the Russian-American pianist Bella Davidovich. Scholarships from The British Council, VSB-fonds and Prins Bernhard Fonds allowed her these years of study. In the US she was a finalist in the St. Charles World Piano Competition (1995), after which she made her debut with the Schumann Concerto. Back in The Netherlands she graduated both in Musicology and Music Theory at University of Utrecht and Utrecht School of the Arts. After she made her debut in the Concertgebouw (Kleine Zaal) with chamber music and solorepertoire, she performed both Concertos by Ravel with the Noord Nederlands Orkest, conducted by Jacques Mercier in 2004. Tamara is involved in chamber music, accompanying and in a interdisciplinary projects. Besides the traditional pianorecital, Tamara has been developing other performances such as lecture-recitals, programmes with minimal-music, transcriptions and performances in public space. She made various recordings for radio and television and as a soloist recorded for Briljant Classics and Emergo Records with various musical styles. For example works of Dutch composers Simeon ten Holt and Chiel Meijering, Spanish composer Antonio Soler, and Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Debussy, Ravel. In 2011 she initiated Foundation Concerts2Connect to link artistic and socially engaged projects, like charity concerts and fund-raising activities with third parties. At the Utrecht Conservatory in The Netherlands she is teaching music-theoretical subjects, ensembles and supervising research of Master students. In 2013 she enrolled at Leyden University for her PhD on collaborative work forms in higher music education.
www.tamararumiantsev.com
Incantatie IV (1987-1990)
Simeon ten Holt
Sandra & Jeroen van Veen
Tamara Rumiantsev
CD 01
Tableau I (1-26)* 28:32
Tableau II (27-44) 13:08
Tableau III (45-68) 12:27
Tableau IV (69-73) 03:53
Total time: 58:03
CD 02
Tableau IV (73-139) 29:47
Tableau IV (140-147) 07:29
Tableau V (147-196) 18:12
Tableau VI (197-203) 04:07
Tableau VII (204-213) 06:15
Total time: 65:54
Schedule:
01-25, 01-14, 26-79, 80-89 (brug, bridge), 90-120, 121-132, 121-144, 146-213*
* The numbers match to the sections in the score.
Produced by: Van Veen Productions for Brilliant Classics Work published by: Donemus, The Hague
Schedule score: Jeroen van Veen
Executive Producer: Jeroen van Veen Engineered & Mastered by: Pianomania
Software: Pro Tools, & Samplitude
Recording: Rutger Boere, Jeroen van Veen
Pianos: Yamaha ’s CFIII
Piano tuner: Andé Oorebeek
Recording date: October 19th, 1998, live performance
Recording location: K & W, Utrecht