Hendrik Andriessen – Hendrik Andriessen

Whether Hendrik is related to Louis Andriessen? Most certainly, he is Louis’s father. Mind you, he’s not a modernist in the sense his son was, not by a long shot.
Four choral compositions here, two masses, a sonnet and an hommage. Andriessen seems to have been influential as a composer of liturgical works in the Netherlands. No baroque adornments, not too much grandeur; clear singing prevails. I’d say his masses do what one may expect from masses: quiet meditative music alternated with hymnal beauty here and there. On this album the number one melody would be the Kyrie in Missa Sponsa Christi (track 3), but that’s a matter of personal preference.

On the front cover a sketch by Jan Toorop, famous Dutch symbolist painter. The artist often took his inspiration from the via crucis, the stations of the cross, and this sketch is obviously a study of the theme.

When the series with the Rotterdam Koorproject came out in the early 90-ties the cds were quite cheap. As the series has been discontinued, the albums are pretty hard to get nowadays. I saw a ridiculous price for a new edition somewhere.

A note on the booklet: it doesn’t have an English text. I don’t know exactly why it doesn’t – perhaps because this subsidised project was not meant to be a commercially successful international release. It was aimed at people who knew little of classical music and/or didn’t have the financial resources to buy expensive cds.
So, in fact it wasn’t much use to include that part of the booklet which explains about Andriessen’s work in Dutch only. There won’t be that many avax users who have Dutch. Yet I included it, for the sake of completeness, together with the Latin texts of the compositions.

performers: Koor project Rotterdam, conducted by Maarten Michielsen
Albert de Klerk, Organ

Compositions on the album:

1. Sonnet
2-12. Missa Sponsa Christi
13. Omagio a Marenzio
14-25. Missa in festo assumptiones Beatae Mariae Virginis

New link 17-12-2012