Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk is a Dutch contemporary composer, who writes music that is challenging to musicians and at the same time fun to listen to. This album sums up all his compositions that involve the recorder, featuring musicians that work closely with the composer and that commissioned new pieces of music by him.
Composer Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk:
"On this CD you will hear a considerable number of the pieces that I wrote for recorder between 1985 and 2015. Most of these have meanwhile been played worldwide by many musicians and ensembles. This CD takes stock of this by presenting performances by the best-known ensembles from the Low Countries. Central to all of this stands the recorder - that lovely instrument. But did I write these pieces just because of the wonderful beauty of its sound?
No, certainly not. Naturally I love the sounds of the recorder: the lyric ecstasy of the baroque recorder, the breathing vocal sound of the renaissance recorder, the rhythmic chuff of the modern bass. I love the aroma of the recorder, the apparent simplicity of its construction, its almost Romanesque but usually baroque vaulting, and its almost always delicate proportions. Most of all I enjoy the historic repertoire of the various types of recorder: the vocal polyphony and dance music of the Renaissance, the breakneck development of instrumental virtuosity and lyricism after that. What’s more, the recorder is outstanding as an instrument with a pedagogical mission: to use its deceptive simplicity to initiate the player and then lead onwards to the highest levels of virtuosity.
But I also really love the violin, cello, clarinet, and snare drum...No, it was less the recorder and its sound than the musicians themselves that brought me to these pieces; specifically the musicians that are brought together here on this CD. Without their help and advice I would have had fewer compositional ideas, and without their good counsel I would have had less knowledge of performance practice."