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Marcel Worms & Ursula Schoch release CD ‘Female Composers from the Netherlands’

‘Things may change’ was the motto of the 17th-century Dutch poet Brederode. It roughly means that everything is fluid, so that even a common view can turn into its opposite. The latter feeling has crept up on me in recent years: female composers were ignored for centuries, but are these days suddenly basking in overwhelming attention.

What particularly bothers me is that in the process their womanhood is often emphasised. When I started working as a music publicist and radio programmer in the mid-1990s, I cherished the idea that women’s creative work would gradually be included in the canon if only I would draw attention to it without further ado. This turned out to be an illusion and, together with other feminist musicologists and musicians, I felt like a lone voice in the wilderness.

Now I realize that actually I always got it wrong: instead of regarding women as composers in their own right, I should have emphasised their gender, as is done so lavishly these days. Labelling seemingly stimulates sales. At the same time, this underlines precisely how unequal the m/f distribution still is even in the 21st century: I have never yet seen a release labelled ‘Male composers…’.

‘Instead of regarding women as composers in their own right, I should have emphasised their gender…’

Into this trend fits the latest CD by pianist Marcel Worms and violinist Ursula Schoch, Female Composers from the Netherlands. I certainly don’t want to sell Worms and Schoch short, as they too have often presented works by women in a non-obtrusive way. Among others, they dedicated portrait CDs to Johanna Bordewijk-Roepman and Agnes Jama. And for his solo series New Blues for Piano, Worms commissioned about as many women as men. – Apparently, the pair now felt the urge to hitch a ride on the trend after all.

Fortunately, there is much to enjoy on this album, which was recorded in 2023. Only Johanna Bordewijk-Roepman’s Sonata for violin and piano (1923) is taken from her portrait CD. She was the wife of the famous Dutch novelist Ferdinand Bordewijk. Her four-movement sonata has a joyous atmosphere, with jaunty violin lines set against frisky piano runs that at times recall Debussy’s impressionism.

Rosy Wertheim’s Sonata for violin and piano (1930) is also distinctly lively, with firm chords from the piano and passionate trills from the violin. In contrast to this is the pensive atmosphere of the first two movements of Agnes Jama’s Suite for violin and piano (1952). Intense melancholic violin lines and hushed piano runs evoke a vast landscape one would love to lose oneself in. In the third and final movement, a whirlwind strikes up, full of punchy rhythms and playful ornamentation.

In her Sonata for violin and piano (1918), Henriëtte Bosmans beautifully juxtaposes the instruments in alternating solo passages through all registers. Sudden silences generate dramatic tension, after which the instruments blend harmoniously again. With its broadly spun gestures and shifting atmospheres, this sonata has the allure of orchestral music.

The album also features two short pieces by Majoie Hajary (1921-2017), who was born in Surinam and graduated from the Amsterdam Conservatoire during the Second World War. In her Serenade, she intertwines a lyrical violin part with a Spanish-tinged rhythm in the piano. In the Tango, the piano plays this Argentinian dance rhythm against passionate lines from the violinist.

The performances are excellent, though the recording sounds a bit crude, perhaps because the microphones are placed somewat too close to the instruments. But the varied music, coupled with the fiery and compelling interpretations by Worms and Schoch make Female Composers from the Netherlands very worthwhile nonetheless.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1WwmezVPE70F0fq4wvLAVQ

#HenriëtteBosmans #MajoieHajary #MarcelWanders #RosyWertheim #UrsulaSchoch