Concertgebouw Orchestra performs Loevendie, Smit and Ravel

Theo Loevendie, 92 years young, has long been one of the Netherlands’ most valued composers. A work by this Amsterdam native will be combined in a colourful programme with music written a century ago by Maurice Ravel and Leo Smit. Loevendie composed his Flexio in 1979 to mark the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s 90th anniversary. Later, Loevendie turned to Turkish music and culture for inspiration. Loevendie’s Six Turkish Folk Poems for voice and seven instruments will be performed in an orchestration by his former pupil, Wilbert Bulsink, who was also commissioned by the orchestra to write a prelude to the work.

Precisely one hundred years ago this month, Ravel himself conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra in his Ma mère Oye, based on The Tales of Mother Goose. Ravel and jazz have always been recognisable fixtures in Loevendie’s work. Those influences can also be heard in the music of Leo Smit, including his Silhouetten. The piece, written while Smit was still studying composition in Amsterdam, was premiered by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1925. Sadly, Smit perished in 1943 in the Sobibor extermination camp.