Willem Jeths: “My piano concerto expresses different facets of love.”
Composer Willem Jeths already had two piano concertos to his name: his First Piano Concerto from 1994 and his Second, Fas/Nefas, from 1997. Over the past year he worked on number three. Scorching Passions is the title of the new piece, which he dedicated to soloist Ellen Corver. On 2 May she will premiere the work with the Residentie Orkest conducted by Antony Hermus during the closing concert of Dag in de Branding.
How did a Third Piano Concerto come about after almost thirty years?
“The immediate reason was a meeting with Ellen. I ran into her in Italy, where we both spend a lot of time. When she asked whether I might want to write a concerto for her, I didn’t have to think twice. I said yes on the spot.”
Why so quickly?
“I’ve known Ellen for forty years, and I’ve always thought she was a fantastic pianist. She has a deep knowledge of avant‑garde music, partly thanks to her close collaboration with Stockhausen, but she’s also very much at home in the classical repertoire. She has performed a lot of my music in the past, including with her Osiris Trio, for whom I wrote my trio Chiasmos. I know her as a pianist who can do essentially anything. She has impeccable rhythmic precision, but she can also shape color beautifully, phrase with great sensitivity, and spin long melodic lines. So yes, she’s really the ideal soloist.”
What can you tell us about the creation process?
“All in all, I worked on this concerto for almost a year and a half, long for my standards. I lived with the notes, but to be honest, I also struggled with them. The piano concerto is a genre with a high specific gravity. So many composers have tackled it. And I had already written two myself, so what do you do with a third? I found that quite a challenge.”
In what way does your Third Piano Concerto differ from the earlier ones?
“In the end, Scorching Passions became a reaction to my Second Piano Concerto, Fas/Nefas. That was a fairly unconventional piece, very focused on sonic experiment. The soloist played inside the piano and used sticks on the strings. Ellen and I quickly agreed that we didn’t want to go in that direction. She said: dear Willem, I really don’t feel like reaching into the strings — please just write for the black and white of the keys. I completely agreed.”
Where does the fiery title, Scorching Passions, come from?
“My concerto is about love — literally about ‘scorching passions’. In the three movements I wanted to express different facets of desire, using archetypal female figures. Early on I knew I wanted to do something with Alecto, one of the three Furies from Greek mythology. That image of an implacable, hard‑hearted woman stayed with me. It resonated strongly with Puccini’s Turandot, another revenge‑driven ice queen who initially rejects love. But over the course of the piece, my female figure transforms. First into a dazzling femme fatale who wants to be adored, and ultimately into the embodiment of true love, until death follows.”