Eline van Esch flute 

Justyna Briefs violin 

Sergiy Starzhynskiy violin 

Hannah Strijbos viola 

Timur Yakubov viola 

Sven Weyens cello 

Mathilde Wauters harp 

Mariken Zandvliet piano 

Maria Warenberg mezzo-soprano 

Dineke Mulock Houwer narrator 

 
Leo Smit (1900-1943) 

Quintet for flute, string trio and harp (1928) 

• Allegro 

• Lento 

• Allegro vivace 

Henriette Bosmans (1895-1952) 

Arietta (1917) 

Jan van Gilse (1881-1944) 

String Quartet (1922, unfinished) 

• Adagio molto 

• Molto vivace 

Break  

Marius Flothuis (1914-2001) 

Pour le tombeau d'Orphee: dans élégiaque pour harpe seule, op. 37 (1950) 

Marius Flothuis  

Sonata da camera (1943) 

• Cadenza 

• Sonatina 

• Lamento 

• Rondo alla francese 

Martin Spanjaard (1892-1942) 

Drei Lieder (1916) 

• In stiller Nacht 

• Aus grünen Fluten 

• Das scheidende Schiff 

Henriette Bosmans  

String Quartet (1927) 

• Allegro molto moderato 

• Lento 

• Allegro molto 

End of concert approximately 10 p.m. 

From Bosmans to Spanjaard 

Actually, a Freedom Concert was planned two years ago as part of 75 years of Liberation in the Netherlands. But due to the lockdown, that had to be canceled. Flutist Eline van Esch listened in 2020 to the podcast series Muziek tot Leven - Verhalen van musicians in de oorlog, created by Margriet Vroomans in cooperation with the Leo Smit Foundation and broadcast in 23 parts on NPO Radio 4 from December 24, 2019. Featured were Leo Smit, Henriette Bosmans, Géza Frid, Jan van Gilse and Marius Flothuis, among others. Van Esch was deeply impressed and decided to do something about the sad fact that the music of these composers, who were imprisoned in camps during the war or murdered by the Nazis because they were Jewish or in the resistance, is hardly ever performed anymore. She decided to give some of them a voice again.  

In cooperation with the Leo Smit Foundation, she put together the special program for VRIJHEID, the concert performed tonight at the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague with Dineke Mulock Houwer, daughter of a resistance fighter who would not survive the war, as narrator. Starting in 2009, Mulock Houwer dedicated herself to the creation of the Orange National Monument in the Scheveningen prison, mockingly called the "Orange Hotel" by the Nazis. During the war, more than 25,000 people were imprisoned there for interrogation and trial, including Jews, resistance fighters, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists and black-marketeers, who were usually transported to concentration camps. 250 of them were executed on the Waalsdorpervlakte, where an annual commemoration is held. The Orange Museum shows how vulnerable our freedom is and what choices people make at the moment when lawlessness, oppression and persecution grips society. Even now these issues are extremely topical, but there is also - witness the music often written in extremely difficult situations at this concert - always hope, solidarity and the call for freedom. Eline van Esch: "The question of what freedom is seems clear to me seen through the eyes of these composers and all the people who suffered in this terrible inhuman war. Being free to express your opinion, freedom of religion, never being judged by your origin. Respect for fellow human beings and what they stand for. Being allowed to be safe in the community you live in... You cannot silence the urge to make music. Even in bitter times, some Dutch composers resisted. The extraordinary composers on tonight's program fought for freedom and deserve to be heard with regularity. Their music was banned during World War II, and often afterward. They should get their voices back!  

Leo Smit 

(1900, Amsterdam - 1943, Sobibor) 

After graduating cum laude from the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano and composition, Leo Smit left for Paris in 1927 to be inspired by French composers, including Ravel, for whom he had great admiration. Ten years later he returned to Amsterdam, where he was very productive until his works were banned by the Nazis. On May 24, 1940, a composition by Smit sounded for Last at the Concertgebouw: the Concert for viola and string quartet. This was followed by another performance of his Concertino for cello and orchestra at the Jewish Theatre on November 24, 1941 . After that, things went quiet. Smit went into hiding and survived with small living room concerts, until he was caught in a raid and via Westerbork ended up in Sobibor, where he was murdered. Smit left behind a rich and varied oeuvre in a French-oriented style, including his Harp Quintet, which he had composed in 1928 for his sister Noa, who played the harp.  

Henriette Bosmans 

(1895, Amsterdam - 1952, Amsterdam) 

Henriette Bosmans grew up in a musical family: her father was a solo cellist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (but died when she was 1 year old), her mother was a piano teacher. The talented Bosmans became a sought-after pianist and soon struck up composing as well. In 1935, Willem Mengelberg performed her Concert piece for violin and cello with the Concertgebouw Orchestra for the first time. But starting in 1942, the Jewish Bosmans was no longer allowed to perform, and in 1944 her mother was rounded up in a raid and sent to Westerbork. Bosmans had had a lesbian relationship with the cellist and conductor Frieda Bellinfante, who was involved in the attack on the Amsterdam Municipal Archives, in which the cellist was the only one who managed to escape the Nazis. For that reason alone, Bosmans, herself Jewish, must have been terrified during the war. She became physically weakened and fell ill. Nevertheless, she gave concerts again until 1951, but in 1952 she died of stomach cancer. Arietta is a 1917 piece for (viola) violin and piano, in which influences of Willem Pijper and the French composers - especially Debussy! - can be heard. The same is true of her 1927 String Quartet, which was premiered by the Amsterdamsch Strijkkwartet in the Concertgebouw's Kleine Zaal on Jan. 28 and sounds like Last today. 

Jan van Gilse 

(1881, Rotterdam - 1944, Oegstgeest) 

From 1897, Jan van Gilse, who knew from a very young age that he wanted to become a musician, studied orchestral conducting, composition and piano at the Cologne Conservatory. In 1905 he became a repetiteur at the Stadttheater in Bremen, where he composed his Third Symphony , which won him an important German prize. He then worked in Munich until he returned to the Netherlands at the end of World War I. There he became director of the Utrecht Conservatory, where Willem Pijper was among his students, and the Utrecht City Orchestra. He composed widely and actively pursued composers until he became very anti-German after the bombing of Rotterdam and openly turned against the Nazis. In 1941, when Jews were no longer allowed in concert halls and musicians had to register with the Kultuurkamer, Van Gilse stopped conducting in protest. Together with other principled musicians, he even wrote a letter of protest to Seyss-Inquart, which was considered high treason and forced him to go into hiding. When he received news in 1944 that both his sons, who were in the resistance, had been executed, Van Gilse collapsed. He died of grief at his hiding place in Oegstgeest on September 8, 1944. Although Van Gilse was educated in Germany, his preference was also for the French music of the first half of the twentieth century, which left traces in his own works, in which he attempted a kind of synthesis between French impressionism and German romanticism. His 1922 String Quartet remained unfinished, but it does bear witness to Van Gilse's extraordinary talents. It is atmospheric music in which contrapuntal elements are interwoven with refinement.  

Marius Flothuis 

(1914, Amsterdam - 2001, Amsterdam) 

Until shortly before his death, Marius Flothuis could be found regularly at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, where he had a job until the war. His 1939 composition Four Songs for Soprano and Orchestra was performed that same year by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Eduard van Beinum. The aura of this impressive and incorruptible figure with his stern exterior was that music was his life. During the war, Flothuis became involved in the resistance. He refused to sign for the Kultuurkamer and also allowed Jews to go into hiding in his home, but he was betrayed on Sept. 18, 1943, arrested and sent by the Nazis to Camp Vught. Despite the horrific conditions, Flothuis managed to keep composing to keep morale high for himself and his fellow prisoners. In 1944, he was transported to Sachsenhausen, and from April 21 to May 4, Flothuis was forced to walk in the so-called "death march" from Sachsenhausen to Berlin and Schwerein, during which many prisoners died. But Flothuis survived the hardships and after the war, in 1953, became assistant artistic director of the Concertgebouw, a post he would retain until 1974. In the following years, he became musicology professor at the University of Utrecht, where he continued to teach until 1982. "Flot," as he was called by colleagues, continued to compose and publish under all circumstances until his death. His 1950 Pour le tombe d'Orphee is a wistful dance composed for the well-known harpist Phia Berghout, who lost her harp during the war but later found it again. The Sonata da Camera for flute and piano was composed in 1943. Flothuis herself said about this work: "When I was arrested in September 1943 there were only two measures on paper, in the next two months in prison in Amsterdam I composed the rest, not on paper but in my head, and when I was taken to Vught on November 26, 1943, I found music paper from the time when there was still a chapel, and I started to write down everything in my head at lightning speed. And I was even able to perform this composition in Vught together with Everard van Royen. 

Martin Spanjaard 

(1892, Borne -1942, Auschwitz) 

Martin Spanjaard was born on July 30, 1892, the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer. When Martin was seven years old, the family moved to The Hague, and from then on the youngster always sat in the front row at concerts at the Kurhaus Hotel in Scheveningen. He studied violin in The Hague with Joseph Salmon and AndréSpoor (concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Residentie Orkest), and piano and composition with Frits Koeberg. He declared that at seventeen "the decisive day had arrived to become a professional musician. That same day he conducted his own Serenade for Orchestra at the French Opera in The Hague. His musical career as a conductor and composer took off both at home and abroad. In a review in the Utrechts Dagblad in 1921, Willem Pijper foresaw a great future as a conductor for the gifted Spanjaard, who shortly thereafter was allowed to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and, because of his sparkling personality, became increasingly popular with the public. With some regularity he also conducted the Residentie Orkest. Spanjaard also enjoyed success abroad, becoming a much sought-after guest conductor in such places as Paris, Berlin and Vienna. But then came the war and the Nazis cornered Spanjaard. On 1942, he and his wife were rounded up in The Hague and transported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered on Sept. 30. As a composer, Spanjaard was an idealist who continued to compose from childhood, whenever he had time. He himself said, "I write what I feel, I have so much music in me..." Even in his sensitive works, few of which have survived, both French and German influences can be found, but above all Spanjaard, like all the other composers at this Freedom Concert, had his own voice. His song cycle Drie Lieder für eine Singstimme mit Klavierbegleitung, nach Gedichten von Li-Tai Po dates from 1916.

Wenneke Savenije 

1. In stiller Nacht 

Vor meinem Bette heller Mondenglanz, 

als überdeckte Reif den Boden ganz. 

Das Haupt erheb' ich, seh' zum hellen Mond, 

senk' es und denke meines Heimatslands. 

2. Aus grünen Fluten 

Aus grünen Fluten im Herbstsonnengold 

pflück' ich im Südteich weisses Wasserhold. 

Die Lotosblumen flüstern, die mich sahn: 

'Zum sterben traurig ist der Mann im Kahn.' 

3. Das scheidende Schiff 

Übers Meer vom Himmelswind umweht 

zieht dein Schiff, wohin die Reise geht. 

Wie ein Vogel, der in Wolken treibt, 

einsam, eisam fliegt er, keine Spur verbleibt.