From the press:
‘Unusual piece……. Borstlap’s Sinfonia succeeded remarkably well in establishing a contact with the audience….. Work of great quality.’ Utrechts Nieuwsblad
‘Borstlap’s Sinfonia: a sympathetic work…….. I was quite amazed by this love declaration to Richard Strauss……… The audience reacted enthusiastically.’ NRC Handelsblad
‘Is there a way back to the supremacy of pure, emotional expression? Borstlap turns towards tradition in search of a solution to the problems of contemporary music…… His Sinfonia is the over-ripe fruit of a trend of continuously increasing eclecticism…. a success indeed.’ Het Parool
‘In his Fantasia, Borstlap turns towards a form of new tonality. Sonorous homophonic lines……. expressive and melancholic arpeggio’s….. A magic sound texture.’ Heilbrunner Stimme
‘Borstlap’s Avatâra: a demanding piece in a rather impressionistic idiom, combining an extremely fast basic element with the utmost refinement and subtlety of expression.’ NRC Handelsblad
‘Borstlap’s Avatâra is a remarkable piece…… Unusually convincing impression… an oasis in a modernist desert.’ Haarlems Dagblad
‘The sonata by John Borstlap is a remarkable work with a seemingly improvisatory, refined and effective, shadow-like texture.’ Haarlems Dagblad
‘Following the neo-romantic style of Peter Schat was the great sonata (1975) by the Dutch composer John Borstlap which was premiered on 27th October in the Small Hall of the Concertgebouw… An unusual occasion since modern music is mostly presented at specialized concerts, but this time the context was a ‘normal’ recital by the American pianist Christopher Czaja Sager…. The work is closer to Ravel than to Stockhausen, but this is symptomatic of the times. It is well-written for the performer, the interruptions of the soft passages continously invoke interest, a nervously tense impressionism which appeared to suit Sager excellently. He immediately repeated the work.’ Ernst Vermeulen, Ons Erfdeel
‘Hyperion’s Dream, Night Music and Capriccio (a traditional horn trio) are works which seem closer to Brahms and Schumann than to the threshold of the new millenium. But that just does not matter, when – for example, in Hyperion’s Dream’s second movement – the plaintive melody in the ‘cello, shifting from major to minor, touches the heart. And there are many moments like this.’ Luister, Classical CD Magazine
‘In his music, John Borstlap combines great craftmanship with the utmost original thematic material. It is remarkable how refreshing new tonal music can be.’ Mens & Melodie
‘John Borstlap’s ‘Psyche’: A sonorous piece, based upon a theme by Wagner but worked-out in a very personal way, and in a more or less late-romantic style……. with interesting, often soft, sound colours emerging from the orchestra.’ Tubantia
‘It is questionable whether this overwhelming and intense music does indeed bridge the gap between composer and listener. The chords in themselves often sound familiar, but their succession hardly. And when tempo is high and the instruments each go their own way, the music is not easy to follow. But Borstlap also writes such beautiful slow movements, that one is inclined to seek the cause of the problems in oneself.’ VPRO Radio Guide
‘A fascinating, engaging, and meaningful program that not only made sense, but, judging from the enthusiastic audience reaction, was broadly satisfying to everybody on every level….. After intermission, John Borstlap’s evocative Solemn Night Music…. Completed just last year, the work could as easily have been written in 1905; it’s combination of stringent, involved counterpoint with arching lyricism and a fine sense of traditional orchestral color brought to mind Richard Strauss, with hints of Elgar and Mahler….. Solemn Night Music provided a superb preface to the main draw of the evening, which followed immediately: Beethoven V’. The Dallas Observer
‘Twelve minutes long, the piece [Solemn Night Music] is surprisingly neo-romantic in tone, and unashamedly beautiful. It belongs in a lineage from Strauss and Korngold, although woven from more elaborately contrapuntal cloth and occasionally touched with more piquant harmonies. Beautifully played, it would be well worth hearing again.’ Dallas Morning News
‘[In Solemn Night Music] Borstlap boldly uses the musical language of Arnold Schoenberg’s 1899 masterpiece, Verklärte Nacht, and Anton Webern’s Im Sommerwind from 1904…. This overripe chromatically complex music is gorgeous…… carefully composed and gorgeous to hear.’ North Texas Performing Arts News
‘…. The two attractive features of this concert were soloist Karen Gomyo, and an Asian première. […] The hall, which was some 80 – 90% full, responded warmly to the program. […] The piece by John Borstlap, jointly commissioned by the Dallas Symphony and the Hong Kong Philharmonic as a project initiated by Jaap van Zweden, emphasised the revival of the classical tradition, and indeed the composer has mixed different classical traditions. This reviewer would like to hear more music by this composer.’ Radio Canton
‘For this evening’s concert Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra presented the world première of John Borstlap’s Second Violin Concerto: ‘Dreamscape voyage’, inspired by Chinese painting and poetry. The music in the woodwinds seemed to be an artistic conception of the sounds of wind between the mountains (this made me think of the Miho Art Museum in Japan which I visited a couple of years ago, as if you travelled through a fairy tale country). The light sounds of the harp added to the beautiful effect. In playing the main theme on the violin, in harmony or in contrast with the orchestra, soloist Jing Wang created something like the perspective as found in traditional Chinese painting. Heavy or light, or with silences… the music had the rhythm of a poem, and made you sometimes think of Gustav Mahler. – The composer, touched by Chinese poetry, has created a marvellous musical work, and the reception of this new piece was the highlight of the evening.’ Sing Tao Daily, Hong Kong
Some further reactions:
Alfred Brendel, pianist: ‘Borstlap’s Fantasia captures splendidly the spirit of Liszt’s late music, and develops it in a personal and convincing way.’
Libor Pesek, Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra: ‘I was immediately captured by the way he creates music. John Borstlap is the rare sort of personality who uses musical language to express, with great originality, his spiritual message.’
Lukas Foss, composer, principal conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, NY: ‘John Borstlap is a first-rate composer indeed, one of the finest in the Netherlands.’
Dr Michael Haas, former producer at a.o. EMI, DG and project leader of the Decca Entartete Musik Series, currently Director of the Exil Arte Centre, Vienna: ‘The music is gorgeous – by its own right – it’s gorgeous and beautifully written. The instrumentation is reminiscent of Schreker and fin de siècle Vienna at its most seductive.’
Richard Stamp, principal conductor of the Academy of London: ‘His music is at once profound and deeply felt but also expertly crafted. In short, it has something to say.’
John Casken, Prof. of Music, University of Manchester: ‘I really admire the musical fluency of expression and the way he revisits the familiar but constantly turns it in new directions. The technical resources necessary for this to happen in a convincing musical way are quite formidable.’
René Koering, Surintendant de la Musique de l’Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier: ‘Psyche shows a virtuosic orchestral writing, also in terms of harmony… A very unusual and, in these times, daring work.’
Sir Roger Scruton FBA, FRSL, philosopher in a.o. musical aesthetics: ‘I think he is one of the truly remarkable intellects of our time, a serious and inspired composer, and a person with an unusual grasp of the role of the artist in general, and the composer in particular in the cultural conditions that have developed in modern Europe. – JB’s voice… is the voice of European culture itself.’
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz, philosopher, musicologist, composer and lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg: ‘….. a brilliant thinker in the field of musical philosophy, as I could conclude from his great essay Recreating the Classical Tradition. Among the composers who seek new ways, I appreciate the music of John Borstlap as a very important voice.’
Prof. Dr. Andreas Dorschel, philosopher and lecturer in musical aesthetics, Head of the Institute for the Aesthetics of Music at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Graz: ‘Borstlap believes in the possibility of connecting with the classical-romantic tradition, and I understand his compositions as a convincing proof that nowadays such connection can be achieved, without reverting to the eclecticism of style copies or (postmodern) style collages. His music shows a composer who creates a music of highly sensual attractiveness, but who also has full intellectual mastery over the material which is his starting point.’
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Anonymous conductor in Leipzig, 1832: ‘A good press is meaningless. Even Beethoven got a good press.’
Anonymous German orchestral programmer in 2016: ‘This music is so beautiful and well-made, that it cannot be accepted as contemporary music, it does not reflect the concerns of our troubled times’.
Anonymous festival director in 2010: ‘Going-back a couple of decennia is OK to me, but going-back a whole century is unacceptable!’.
Anonymous music fan in 2017: ‘I am camping in Tombstone. Last night turned on the radio and picked up the classical station from Tucson. The Dallas Symphony was playing your Solemn Night Music. It was beautiful – fit the mood of watching the brilliant stars perfectly. I was impressed.’