Ben Legebeke

What do I like to listen to? 

I chose four works that changed the course of music history such as Beethoven's unsurpassed String Quartet No. 14 (opus 131), Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' with the famous, until then unheard of Tristan chord and Stravinsky's revolutionary 'Sacre du Printemps'. And, of course, Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique," written two years after the death of Schubert and three years before the birth of Brahms. It was first performed in 1830 and immediately symbolized the musical avant-garde. Finally, I also enjoy listening to the music of John Lennnon, who managed to innovate on a completely different musical plane, even after his time with the Beatles. These are compositions that still touch me. 

From Musikverein to Carnegie Hall

His parents thought he was just a wild boy and suggested percussion as an outlet. But one of his first concerts, the Brabant Orchestra with violinist Zino Vinnikov in the Rotterdam Doelen, so impressed little Ben Legebeke that he went for the violin. From the moment he received a violin from St. Nicholas, things moved quickly. Now he has been with the Residentie Orkest for over 40 years. One of his highlights? "Mahler's Second with Hans Vonk in Vienna's Musikverein. And especially that the following day the newspaper wrote that the Residentie Orkest was Holland's best orchestra!"

 
After Ben began playing the violin at age 11, his future seemed set. His first violin teacher was Louis Sons, second concertmaster at the Residentie Orkest in Willem van Otterloo's time. "At seventeen I was on the doorstep in Amsterdam with Herman Krebbers from whom I had lessons for about six years. After a brief collaboration with the Brabants Orchestra, I flew to Rome to audition with the RAI orchestra and the Orchestra dell'Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia." Ben was accepted at both but he still didn't like it very much. Not much later he joined the Residentie Orkest where, to his amazement, he encountered his very first idol in the concertmaster's chair: Zino Vinnikov. "At that time, the orchestra had tremendous charisma. The Concertgebouw Orchestra may have been on top, but Residentie Orkest was a close second. Those early days were a great time: exceptional guest conductors, Hans Vonk as an excellent chief conductor and tours that were amazing. I remember a tour through the United States in 1982. As musical ambassador for the Netherlands, we then played in the most important American cities: Chicago, Boston, New York. In Carnegie Hall we played Stravinsky's complete Firebird, among other things. You were broken at the end of such a long trip, though. After all, we were gone for about five weeks."

Meanwhile, Residentie Orkest has moved several times: from Prins Willem-Alexanderzaal to Dr. Anton Philipszaal and, via Zuiderstrandtheater, back to the Spui. "I do have some trouble with that wandering. The Zuiderstrandtheater was beautiful but on the periphery of the city and I found that unfortunate. Fortunately we have returned to the city itself. Amare has a great Concert Hall and it is also incredibly nice that we are all together again: both orchestra and staff."  

And what does Ben think of the orchestra today? "We have been rejuvenated in recent years, there are incredibly good people in it. The orchestra used to have allure but lacked a certain discipline and technical perfection. That is much better now. We really are a fantastic orchestra, with our own sound, especially in the strings. You can get incredibly far with it as a conductor. I think that still has an important basis in the 1990s when Evgenii Svetlanov was in charge. He knew how to bind the orchestra, it was just magical how he managed to do that. And of course I want to mention Jaap van Zweden. But also Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Horst Stein, Antal Doráti and some younger conductors like Alan Gilbert, Michael Tilson Thomas or Santtu-Matias Rouvali. And in the period before that Ferdinand Leitner, Heinz Wallberg, Franz Welser-Möst and of course Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who died in 2016: what an extraordinary conductor. We did tours with him, Schubertiades, Beethoven's 'Missa Solemnis' and 'Fidelio' and Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Gidon Kremer. What a feast that was." 

What many may not know is that Ben has an almost unerring memory for what the Residentie Orkest has performed in recent years. Ask him for a particular date and he'll instantly be able to recite conductor, soloist and pieces performed. "Although there are starting to be hiccups due to my age," Ben laughs. What would he put on the program himself? "I think works less played by composers like Korngold, Zemlinsky and Berlioz but also Hendrik Andriessen's Fourth Symphony written especially for us. I have broad tastes anyway: Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, R. Strauss, Sibelius, Dutilleux, Messiaen and Lutoslawski. In the car to work I mostly play pop music, with The Doors at No. 1." At home, Ben is mostly reading when he wants to relax. "I love traveling and especially to cities where there is a lot to see in terms of history. So I read a lot about antiquity, the French Revolution, Napoleon, the Third Reich, as well as secret services and time travel." 

Finally, Ben would like to tell something about his violins. He owns two, the first is a fairly recently built modern violin by the Japanese violin maker Tetsuo Matsuda that was made very strong at his request, so with fairly thick wood. And next to it is the violin (a 1755 Gaspare Lorenzini) that once belonged to the legendary violinist Ossy Renardy, who died in a traffic accident in 1953 at the age of 33. "Renardy probably used this violin to make a fantastic recording with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Brahms' Violin Concerto in 1948. Absolutely a magnificent violin. It is now on loan to the concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra." 

Jan Jaap Zwitser