Agnes Houtsmuller to retire
How a record cover can change someone's life
This week, first violinist Agnes Houtsmuller plays her Last Concerts with the Residentie Orkest. For almost forty years, a third of the orchestra's age, she played with them.
"You know the moment will come one day, but still I will miss the orchestra, the colleagues, making music together and especially the music very much."
Under the heavenly sounds of Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Agnes goes into well-deserved retirement. But after that, she continues to play the violin. "In the corona period I started playing Beethoven's string quartets with colleagues from the orchestra, and now we are working on Mozart's string quartets and quintets. That's a wonderful thing to do. And I have another trio with my husband and son, Trio Kanter. We recently recorded a CD, which became CD of the week in the monthly magazine Luister and was played on NPO classical. In the coming year I still have chamber music concerts, including a performance in the presence of the king.
"When I was about four years old, my father came home with a long-playing record that was magical to me. When that record was put on, I couldn't sleep."
- Agnes Houtsmuller
Long Playlist
In the parental home in Rotterdam, music was often heard. "My mother loved to sing Schubert and was a soprano in the Laurens Cantorij founded by her cousin Barend Schuurman. When I was about four years old, my father came home with a long-playing record that was magical to me. When that record was put on, I couldn't sleep. That beginning with those timpani...an invisible string drew me to the music like a magnet. The cover of that record had a picture of a violin with a woman's face in it. I wanted to take violin lessons but I wasn't allowed to yet. First I had to get my swimming certificate and then three years of piano lessons, just like my siblings. My mother thought I would have other interests by then, but she was wrong. Then at age ten I finally got violin lessons."
A dream
"At the Conservatory of Amsterdam I studied for six years with Herman Krebbers, once concertmaster of the Residentie Orkest. During that period I played in the European Youth Orchestra, for which you had to audition every year. Those years were like a dream so beautiful. A crazy opportunity with the best conductors like Herbert von Karajan - who was flown in by helicopter to our rehearsals high in the Alps - and Claudio Abbado who rehearsed with us in Sicily. When I hear or play Brahms' Second Symphony now, I am right back in that orchestra." Then in Utrecht I learned a lot from Wiktor Liberman and Philippe Hirschhorn. Hirschhorn in particular was inspiring and worked on freedom of expression and self-confidence.
Choosing
Agnes was accepted into both the Residentie Orkest and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in February 1986. "I had to choose. Although the Dr. Anton Philips Hall had not yet been built, it was to be a copy of Vienna's Musikverein. As a Rotterdam native, I chose to move out from under Mother's wings. My very first production was accompanying Verdi's opera Falstaff. Delightful it was and I was even slightly sad after the Last performance, as if the Last day of vacation had arrived."
Magic
Agnes nearly rounds out the forty years at first violins. "A lot has changed, though. Of course you still get a warm welcome - as I did at the time - when you're new. It's also really a collegiate orchestra. In the early days, colleagues sometimes arrived late and there was a lot of laughter during rehearsals. That has really changed. The playing style is also less woolly now; the sounds have become much purer. Svetlanov stood out for me as one of the best conductors. He said little but could convey everything very clearly with his hands and facial expressions. I also have very good memories of Alain Lombard, Claus Peter Flor, the tours a.o. to South America with Jaap van Zweden and recently the concerts with Richard Egarr. I am a big fan of that. He really knows how to pull you into the magic of the music."
Record cover
The record with the iconic cover later resurfaced when Agnes' father asked her to clean out his old long-playing records. As it turned out, it was a photograph taken by Paul Huf for the recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto by the Residentie Orkest conducted by Willem van Otterloo with the soloist...Herman Krebbers. "Was this a coincidence or had I unconsciously been guided in my choice by the overwhelming impact of that record on myself as a four-year-old?"
Agnes Houtsmuller / Jan Jaap Zwitser
