Jeroen van Veen & Irene Russo (Piano Duo)

Piano Marathon

Canto Ostinato by Simeon ten Holt
With the piano duo Jeroen van Veen & Irene Russo

In his native Netherlands, Simeon ten Holt (1923-2012) is a major figure; in Germany, he is known primarily to fans of contemporary piano music. His monumental piano work Canto Ostinato ranks among the most famous and frequently performed works of new music in the Netherlands and is one of the best-selling recordings on CD.

After early works in serial technique and electronic music, ten Holt underwent a radical stylistic shift toward minimalism after 1970 - a direction that gave avant-garde music new rhythmic momentum and freed it from its fixation on atonality. Canto Ostinato, composed between 1976 and 1979, was the initiating work of this stylistic transformation. The composition for two or four pianos is based on over 100 rhythmic-motivic cells that can be repeated any number of times according to specific patterns - the duration can thus vary between two and 24 hours. The music is characterized by relentless ostinato drive and jazzy swing; the sound thickens and loosens, while dynamics and tonal-harmonic colors constantly shift.

The piano marathon is performed by two interpreters thoroughly familiar with this repertoire: Jeroen van Veen, Dutch pianist and director of the Simeon ten Holt Foundation, who recorded a 9-CD box of minimalist music, and Italian pianist Irene Russo, a student of Lazar Berman and Alicia de Larrocha. Martha Argerich once called her "one of the finest young musicians I have heard"; at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich 2002, she was recognized for "the best contemporary interpretation".

Text: Klaus Meyer