Abstract
Symphony orchestras play a crucial role in Dutch musical life. They not only give composers the opportunity to present their music and give musicians and listeners the chance to get acquainted with new music, they also have own ideas about presenting which music in which setting. This dissertation describes the
... read more
policy of the professional Dutch symphony orchestras towards Dutch music and put this into perspective by relating it to the financial possibilities given to them by the Dutch government, the Dutch orchestral music written in this period, the existing canon, the style of this music and the publications about it, mainly those coming from Donemus, the publisher of most of the Dutch orchestral music played by Dutch orchestras. Before 1970 most of the Dutch orchestral music played was moderately modern music by living composers. Almost all the orchestras strived for integration of the Dutch and the foreign repertoire and almost none of them had a series especially devoted to contemporary music. In these aspects the differences between the orchestras (with the exception of the orchestras from Dutch broadcasting organizations) were mainly marginal. Avant-garde music was played however, but less often, and mainly by the Concertgebouworkest, Residentie Orkest and the broadcasting orchestras. The years around 1970 saw fundamental changes. The orchestras in the Randstad (the urbanized western part of the country) gave more attention to avant-garde music, though mainly in special series, while most regional orchestras continued the policy they had before 1970. Also short after 1970 Donemus changed its policy and decided to give most of its attention to avant-garde composers who often were not primarily interested in the symphony orchestra as their favorite medium. The result was a growing gap between Donemus, the composers it mostly promoted, the composers of orchestral music, and the orchestras. The number of performances with moderately modern music decreased. New fundamental changes came around 1980. A group of composers bridged the gap between the avant-garde and the moderately modern composers by integrating elements from the avant-garde in the moderately modern style. The growing popularity of composers in this new ‘bridging’ style and the growing criticism among a wider audience towards avant-garde resulted with some orchestras in a critical approach and later a disappearance of the series exclusively devoted to new music. Besides the government gave up the ideology, held since 1945, of spreading culture and decided to give less money to Dutch orchestras. Some of them had to disappear and most of the remaining became more cautious in presenting new music. An attempt in 1997 by the secretary for the arts, to force the orchestras to devote at least 7 % of their repertoire to Dutch music, remained unsuccessful
show less
