Claus Vermeulen - Janácek & Bartók & Mulleman & Enescu: Duo Vermeulen Verpoest (2021)

The goal of our debut album is to present an anthology of twentieth-century Eastern-European music. Music that has a strong connection to its place of origin and local folk music. The latter is remarkable in a century in which radically new musical directions were explored. Composers such as Janá?ek, Bartók and Enescu were explorative in their own ways. Janá?ek, for example, developed a unique harmonic language and an improvisatory style within a late Romantic context. Bartók, on the other hand, often engaged with Expressionism, while Enescu was more influenced by the French Impressionists. And yet these innovations are not incomprehensible, even to inexperienced listeners. The fertile soil and humanity in which this music is rooted makes it universal and accords each new innovation a place within an organic whole. Tim Mulleman’s work was written specifically for this CD. He reveals a contemporary perspective on our programme with the occasional nod to Enescu. This gives us the opportunity to present a work of our own generation, rounding out our debut. As performers we attempt to approximate the soul and the intention of the composer to the greatest extent possible, while also maintaining our own freedom and particularity. Above all, we seek to immerse the listener in the zeitgeist and the culture of the composers presented here. At the same time, we hope to express something of ourselves and our own roots both through Mulleman’s work and our own interpretations.