John Borstlap

John Borstlap (4 June 1950, Rotterdam) is a Dutch composer[1] pioneering a renaissance of tonal and classical traditions.[2] He is an author on cultural subjects, related to music and the visual arts.

Education

John Borstlap studied from 1968 through 1973 at the conservatory in Rotterdam,[3] composition with Otto Ketting[4] and Theo Loevendie, and piano with Elly Salomé.[5]

Early career

After moving to Delft in 1976, Borstlap made a living by private piano teaching and accompanying ballet classes, while carrying out extensive musical studies, as well as studies in art history and Jungian psychology. The American pianist Christopher Czaja Sager,[6] who had shortly before settled in the Netherlands, discovered some of his piano pieces which he performed many times, including radio recordings.[7] In 1981 Sager premiered Borstlap’s ‘Variations’ for piano and string orchestra (commissioned by the Johan Wagenaar Foundation in The Hague) with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra under Antoni Ros-Marbà with performances in Amsterdam and The Hague.

Cambridge and beyond

On the basis of two prizes he had meanwhile won with his Violin Concerto, Borstlap competed successfully in 1984 at both the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznan[8] and the Prince Pierre de Monaco Competition in Monaco for a British Council Scholarship of a year at the University of Cambridge[9] At the music faculty there he studied with Alexander Goehr. As Borstlap wrote in his book, The Classical Revolution (2013), "understanding the Schönbergian heritage would mean understanding of the origin of musical modernism".

In 1990 the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra under Hartmut Haenchen performed Borstlap’s first symphony, Sinfonia.[10]

In the nineties Borstlap was involved in various projects, such as an extensive national concert tour of the Ludwig Trio for which he wrote a string trio,[11] and the production of a CD with his chamber music Hyperion’s Dream. In 1998 he organized a classical chamber music festival in Haarlem. While working on his music, his writings on musical and wider cultural subjects began to be published.

The beginning of the new millennium saw various performances of his elaboration of a Wagner sketch, Psyche, in Manchester, the Netherlands and Romania, and the publication of a long essay: Recreating the Classical Tradition in the tome Reviving the Muse in which Borstlap formulated his latest ideas about the possibilities of a renaissance of the tonal tradition.[12] Psyche received a successful performance by the Orchestre National de Montpellier in 2008. Since then, interest in Germany and Austria has grown, resulting among other things in a commission by the Kammersymphonie Berlin for a classical symphony. In 2013 his book The Classical Revolution was published.[13]

Works

Orchestral / operatic music

Chamber music (selection)

Selected writings

References

  1. ↑ Entartete Musik. Emanuel Overbeeke & Leo Samama.
  2. ↑ "John Borstlap". Muziekencyclopedie.
  3. ↑ "John Borstlap Biography". Last.fm.
  4. ↑ Otto Ketting on Dutch and German wikipedia
  5. ↑ Elly Salomé on Dutch wikipedia
  6. ↑ Christopher Czaja Sager on German wikipedia
  7. ↑ "Leidse Courant".
  8. ↑ "Muziekencyclopedie Biography". Muziekencyclopedie.
  9. ↑ "Composer 20th/21st century". University of Cambridge.
  10. ↑ "Zweifel als Waffe. Hartmut Haenchen über Musik" (PDF).
  11. ↑ "Trio for strings: program note". Donemus.
  12. ↑ "Bias and Inanity in Arts Funding". Aristos. Michelle Marder Kamhi.
  13. ↑ Daniel, Asia. "Book Review "The Classical Revolution"". Springer Link.
  14. ↑ "Henryk Wieniawski Composers Competition". Henryk Wieniawski Musical Society.
  15. ↑ Understanding Music. Roger Scruton.
  16. ↑ "Dallas Symphony Orchestra European tour". Art & Seek. Jerome Weeks.
  17. ↑ "Library Catalogue". University of Toronto Libraries.
  18. ↑ "Classical Music Review". Gramophone.co.uk.
  19. ↑ "The Classical Revolution". Google Books.
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