#rdiofilharmonischorkest — Public Fediverse posts

Joey Roukens: ‘In my Second Violin Concerto the music is trying to escape from the depths’

On Friday 31 January, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Simone Lamsma will christen Joey Roukens‘ Second Violin Concerto, Ouf of the Deep under the baton of  Markus Stenz, former chief conductor of the orchestra. The work was commissioned by the AVROTROS Vrijdag Concert and the world premiere in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht will be broadcast live on NPO Klassiek.

Joey Roukens, (Schiedam, 1982) is one of the most successful composers of his age, also abroad. In 2024, for instance, Gemma Bond created a choreography for the Royal Ballet to his critically acclaimed double concerto In Unison, which he had composed for the piano duo Lucas & Arthur Jussen.

On 30 January, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra will play Night Flight, the third movement from his First Symphony. As mentioned above, the day after his Second Violin Concerto will be baptized in Utrecht.

Pure beauty

In 2016, Joey Roukens composed his First Violin Concerto, Roads to Everywhere. After its premiere, the critic of the Dutch newspaper NRC wrote: ‘Sections merge organically and in a dance-like way. […] Roukens plays with kitsch elements, and passes them through a filter in the finale – what remains is pure beauty.’

Well said, because this two-movement piece, commissioned by Asko|Schönberg for first violinist Joe Puglia, adequately captures his way of composing. Roukens embraces the classical tradition but at the same time spices his scores with hefty pinches of jazz, dance, pop and film music. His work is always easy to understand, has a high energy and an immediately appealing eloquence that make him popular with younger generations, too.

Virtuosity in the service of musical thought

As in his First Violin Concerto, Roukens did not aim to write a spectacle piece in the vein of popular violin concertos by, say, Vivaldi, Beethoven or Paganini. Far more than a soloist who gets to show off his immense technical skills against a subservient orchestra, Roukens regards them as equal partners Virtuosity is never an end in itself, but always in the service of the musical idea, with orchestral musicians definitely not lacking in challenging material.

Roukens composed his concerto for the Frisian violinist Simone Lamsma, whom he asked about her preferences: ‘Like me, she turned out to have a great love of Russian music,’ he says. ‘I discerned in her a preference for the more dark-tinged concertos by Shostakovich and Gubaidulina.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVAZRhKdVKE

‘That rather more melancholic side is increasingly apparent in my own music, too, so I decided to explore this further in Out of the Deep. To me, this composition is the big sister of my earlier violin concerto, which is more playful and ends quietly and serenely. This ending, on the other hand, is sad and desolate. In any case, the orchestra is also larger and more substantial.’

Music rises from the depths

The title is derived from how the music develops in the course of the concerto. Roukens: ‘Just before the solo violin enters, the orchestra has descended into a kind of musical abyss; the brass play a loud, low note that sounds like a foghorn. Then the soloist introduces a plaintive motif, after which she gradually climbs higher and higher, until she finally ends up in her very highest register. While writing, I always had the image in mind of a music trying to escape from that depth.’

Rocking barcarole versus chromaticism

Although Roukens considers Out of the Deep to be in one single movement, there are four titles and an epilogue in the score. Asked for the meaning of this the composer replies: ‘Well, I regard it rather as one through-composed whole, in which different subsections are played without interruption’.

Apart from the slowly ascending character of the music, there is another unifying factor, he explains: ‘The solo violin’s lamento has a theme like that of a barcarole, a swaying gondola song, against which the orchestra sets chromatic, dissonant passages. These two themes form the basic material and run as a thread throughout the concerto.’

From lamentation to resignation

In the first movement, these two themes face each other more or less as extremes, the second has a great rhythmic energy, after which the third offers a lyrical, almost devout interlude and the fourth returns to the fierce energy of the beginning. Violinist and orchestra react to each other in an increasingly stubborn and grim way, until their ‘battle’ comes to a head.

In a melancholic and calm epilogue, sparse chords from mainly the strings accompany the solo violin during its slow ascent to the very highest register. Peace has returned.

#JoePuglia #JoeyRoukens #MarkusStenz #RdioFilharmonischOrkest #SimoneLamsma