Janine Jansen back with debut concert Britten
In January, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will play three concerts with Klaus Mäkelä and violinist Janine Jansen, among them the festive Annual Gala. She’ll be playing the solo in Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, the same piece with which she made her debut with us twenty years ago.
Our musicians and Janine Jansen first met in 2004, the year after she won the Dutch Music Prize, one of the many awards she has received. ‘Those two weeks were very special’, the now-renowned violinist recalled years afterward in an interview for Preludium: ‘first Britten’s Violin Concerto conducted by Jonathan Nott, and after that Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto with Iván Fischer. Who would take on a heavy-duty double debut like that today? I’ve given Britten’s concerto a place in my heart. That I could start my relationship with this orchestra with this piece was very special for me.’
Trust
Since then, we’ve performed sixty times with Janine Jansen, in The Concertgebouw, and on tour – through Spain, the United States, China, Korea and South Africa and during a state visit to Berlin together. ‘There’s a long list of wonderful experiences that we’ve shared,’ the violinist says. ‘When I think of my connection with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the first word that comes to mind for me is “trust”. The Concertgebouw’s Main Hall is one of the best in the world, and yet it’s not an easy space to play; you don’t always hear each other straight away. It's at those moments that you have to feel really secure with each other and really be able to sense what the others are doing. ’
‘I’ve grown in the way I listen to what the orchestra is giving me, and how I have to blend. I’ve become more aware of what’s going on around me. All those times I’ve played with this orchestra have really helped me grow as a musician.’
Britten’s Violin Concerto
Benjamin Britten wrote his Violin Concerto in 1939, while the Spanish Civil War was raging and the Second World War was about to break out. Spanish rhythms, tension and a feeling of menace are all in this concerto, each of those movements flow into the next. Jansen says, ‘From the first moment I got to know it, I was strongly drawn to its extreme intensity. There’s such emotion in the piece, such struggle and pain.’
The Britten Violin Concerto is also not an easy one to play. ‘It’s very well written for the instrument, but it’s still extremely challenging,’ Jansen once said in an interview with the string magazine The Strad. ‘Of course that can be frustrating – you can spend hours practising the work every time you’re due to perform it, but I think this sense of struggle, of the music not coming easily to you, is actually very important for the music. It feels like it’s on the borders of what’s possible for the instrument.’
Two exceptional moments
‘For me, there are two exceptional moments in the concerto. The first comes right after the cadenza – there’s such a build-up to this spot, and then the trombones enter with the last movement’s passacaglia theme, and you’re right at the very top of your range, basically screaming. You feel lost, completely alone, and it’s as if there’s something very threatening underneath you. And the end of the piece is very intimate, almost like a prayer – it’s as if you empty your soul into the concerto at this point.’
We’re delighted that Janine Jansen is coming back to the Concertgebouw Orchestra with the work that, twenty years on, has become one of her signature pieces. And there’s also a musical click between the violinist and Klaus Mäkelä, as proven by their collaborations over this past year. Our concerts on 22, 23 and 24 January promise to be quite special!
