Vermeulen's Second - Ugly but Hypnotic

[Sydney Grew]

It is a work that magnificently adheres to what is perhaps the prime injunction upon all composers: keep going! (Regrettably an injunction to which so many modern men have closed their ears.) But Vermeulen keeps relentlessly going in an intricate web of counterpoint from beginning to end without a single pause for breath. How florid it all is! How continuously melismatic! How Oriental, even! Only Bach or Saint-Saëns can rival him there. Vermeulen must have been one of that hyperactive breed of Dutchman with which we are all familiar - a temperament it seems so effective in composition. All that is to be regretted is that he was not more sensible to the beauties afforded by the structured harmonic sequence.

[Roehre]

Which recording of Vermeulen's 2nd have you listened to, as especially the very first recording of the piece (Residentie orkest Den Haag, cond. Hiroyuki Iwaki, recorded live 31th Oct 1970) has been [re-]released on a couple of LPs and CDs, but is not particularly well played and IMO particularly badly recorded, at least in terms of balance.
There are a couple of very nice almost chamber-music-like passages (one of which nearly Bizet :) , another with a duo for solo-violin and harp ) which show the poly-melodist Vermeulen at his best, but which have been less than accurately made audible in that recording.

The (deleted?) recording on Chandos, and the different recordings used for the Vermeulen-CD-edition and the Vermeulen-LP-edition are much preferable.

Btw, my preferred Vermeulens are nos. 2 (1920) and 3 (1922), though no.1 is a nice introduction in polymelodic composing within a Mahlerian context (1912/'14). The most difficult IMO is no.5 (1945), the only one in 3 movements, and (again IMO) harsh in harmonies combined with long stretches of very loud music. A kind of Prokofiev 2 square.

It is weird to realize that Vermeulen offered his 1st symphony for a premiere to Mengelberg (who rejected the idea in a very rude manner) and that the 7th (1965) was premiered by Haitink in 1967.

Btw, another composer who -less discordant but nevertheless very interestingly- uses polymelodic structures is Rudolf Escher (1912-1980, nephew from the Escher), especially in his 1943 Musique pour l'esprit en deuil (Music for a mourning spirit)

[Sydney Grew]

Thanks for all that information Mr. Roehre. The version I have of the 1920 Second symphony (which, wisely or not, bears the sub-title "Prelude to a New Day") is conducted by Van Beinum in 1956 - presumably it is the very same performance - after a delay of more than thirty years - that is said to have "instigated a new period of creativity" in the composer. I also have a Haitinck performance of the First (1914, sub-titled "Sinfonia Carminum), but have never heard the String Quartette, nor symphonies Three to Seven: a pleasure for the future. The Seventh bears an excellent sub-title: "Dithyrambs for a Coming Age."

Vermeulen rejected Strawinscy's neo-classicism - what a wise move! He also sensible fellow saw the fallacy in Schönberg's serial technique - just a self-imposed limitation which destroyed freedom. In early years Vermeulen (known also as Van der Meulen) was best known for his musical journalism and writings on philosophy and culture. His book "The Adventure of the Spirit" (1947) sounds particularly interesting does it not (although again I have not seen it).

[Eudaimonia]

I suppose it all depends on what you mean by "ugly," doesn't it? For example, I find his work below to be quite aesthetically pleasing; whether or not it meets your idiosyncratic definition of "beautiful" remains to be seen:

Matthijs Vermeulen - Cello Sonata No. 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7pCcVivPVE&feature=related