Hendrik Andriessen: Complete Symphonic Works by Porcelijn

One’s first encounter with a composer can leave an indelible mark—sometimes quite literally. Mine with Hendrik Andriessen came courtesy of a church organist in a windswept Pennine village who had the temerity to programme modern repertoire for a congregation (two elderly ladies on a good Sunday) whose tolerance for anything post-Wesley was approximately nil. The piece in question was Andriessen’s Sonata di Chiesa, which our beleaguered organist had acquired on a pilgrimage to Utrecht Cathedral and proceeded to inflict upon us weekly, exploiting its theme-and-variations structure to experiment with every wheezy stop our decrepit instrument possessed.

I recall vividly the evening our curate—a young man of traditionalist bent who had already earned notoriety for hurling a Good News Bible across the nave whilst denouncing it as “the Word of the Devil“—stormed down from the organ loft mid-rehearsal, red-faced and trembling. “Wesley… YES!” he bellowed. “Handel… YES! Bach… YES!” Then, after a dramatic pause worthy of Irving: “MESS-EYE-EN… NO!” The poor organist never did get to finish his Andriessen that night.

Thus began my fascination with this unjustly neglected Dutch master, a composer whose son Louis would eventually achieve the international recognition that largely eluded the father. This CPO box—four discs gathering the complete symphonies alongside all the purely orchestral works—makes an overwhelming case for reassessment. Not since their Frankel and Sallinen cycles has CPO assembled a collection of such consistent quality devoted to a twentieth-century symphonist who deserves far wider currency.

The four symphonies emerged at roughly decadal intervals across the first half of Andriessen’s career, each a model of fastidious craftsmanship. The First (1930) is astonishingly concise at thirteen minutes, distilling a decade’s worth of sketches into a continuous three-movement design—fast-slow-fast, with a puckish scherzo embedded within the central panel. Nothing here feels rushed or undernourished. The pensive opening contains, as it were, the DNA of everything that follows. If the quicker music suggests neo-classicism in its pace and clarity, the harmonic content is far more serious—Rousselian rather than Stravinskian, with a taut cogency that never wastes a gesture. Porcelijn has the measure of its shape completely, understanding that this is music which amounts to considerably more than the sum of its parts.

The Second Symphony (1937), written for the Concertgebouw’s fiftieth anniversary and dedicated to van Beinum, retains the tripartite plan but gives each movement a discrete formal identity: Fantasia, Pavane, Rondo. Nineteen minutes, not a second more than necessary. The opening Fantasia deploys a sinuous melodic idiom over tightly controlled harmony—Leo Samama in his distinguished notes suggests Parisian influences, pointing to the bitonality, but I hear more of Willem Pijper’s second and third symphonies in the sheer sound of it. The central Pavane is more diatonic, more rhythmically predictable until some unexpected syncopations near its close. Andriessen’s woodwind writing here is wonderfully variegated—he had a real gift for those colors. The Rondo finale returns to the mysterious, occasionally ominous atmosphere of the first movement, and one cannot help but admire Andriessen’s absolutely non-tokenistic use of saxophones. They appear in beautifully judged cameos at key structural points, never as mere novelty.

It becomes apparent in these first two symphonies that Porcelijn’s readings are far superior to the workmanlike (and rather dated) accounts on Etcetera. The CPO sonics are warm and detailed, pitched ideally to allow immersion in the economy of Andriessen’s writing. The Phion Orchestra—formerly the Netherlands Symphony, briefly HET Symfonieorkest before its 2019 merger with the Arnhem Philharmonic—plays with precision and palpable commitment.

The Third Symphony (1946) was composed after Andriessen’s six-month detention by the Nazis for non-cooperation. Its opening bars briefly suggest something affirmative—modal inflections not a million miles from the Vaughan Williams of that period—before terse reminders of what has passed qualify the optimism. This feels like music of emotional regrouping. The four-movement structure includes a motoric Sonata second movement where that fastidious craftsmanship is on full display, followed by a haunting Sarabande that serves as the work’s emotional core. Those baroque patternings, those intermittent brass fanfares underpinned by an uneasy gravity—this is powerfully affecting music. The Fuga finale resolves the stylistic and emotional questions posed by the preceding movements with gritty architectural ingenuity. Porcelijn’s account is invigorating, engaged, the antithesis of routine.

By the Fourth Symphony (1954), Andriessen felt obliged—like Frank Martin—to derive some constructive application from dodecaphony, though he rejected its implied emotional coldness. At twenty-five minutes this is his most extended symphonic statement, reverting to three movements. The first (Molto grave e energico) equals the other two combined in length. That austere string idea at the opening conveys something of Martin’s arc and essence, before the energico element kicks in with propulsiveness occasionally checked by briefer episodes of grace. This is serious-minded, formally invincible music that surely merits greater recognition—at least the equal of Honegger’s contemporaneous Fifth in the precision of its development. There’s a wonderful moment at 8:30 when the music slows suddenly and the night seems to draw in. The central Andante sostenuto oscillates between twilit glow and restless material, with more of that masterly woodwind writing. The Allegro vivace finale is driven by an angular, defiantly Honeggerian idea, with balm provided mid-movement by a winsome flute melody before an ominous drum-roll restores the breathless astringency that persists until the symphony’s abrupt conclusion.

These performances are the best I’ve encountered