Belgian chamber quintet Het Collectief combine the contemporary and the traditional for a holistic music experience. Alex Vella Gregory caught up with Thomas Dieltjens, the group pianist, while they were in Malta for a performance.
There’s a grey area between mainstream classical music and contemporary classical music. It is all that music which is not familiar enough to the average music lover, yet avoided by the contemporary purists who are interested only in new music. And this is where Het Collectief comes in.
They are the chamber quintet to discover this year. This group of Belgian musicians was formed in 1998 in an effort to explore repertoire outside of the usual conservatoire fare.
Their point of departure is the Second Viennese School of the early 20th century.
Repertoire for this formation is rare, so we play in different combinations, occasionally enlarging the group
The most important feature of the group is their flexibility, both in their playing formations and repertoire. This is done partly for practical reasons.
“We are a quintet and want to stay a quintet,” says Thomas Dieltjens, the group’s pianist, “but repertoire for this formation is rare, so we play in different combinations, occasionally enlarging the group.”
However, the group is also constantly expanding its repertoire, and the more formations they can play in, the more works they can tackle. It has taken them a lot of hard work, but they have now built a repertoire that includes the likes of Schoenberg, Berg, Shostakovich, Korngold and many more.
I cannot but wonder whether there is a conscious avoidance of contemporary music, but Dieltjens defends contemporary music. “We do play contemporary pieces, but we do not have the money to commission as many works as we like. Besides, we like to build a rapport with a composer, and try to have the work played more than once.”
Het Collectief actually premieres two pieces a year, and each piece is played more than once, and also recorded whenever possible. They also avoid contemporary music festivals. Dieltjens explains: “In these festivals, the audience is limited and often music is played isolated from mainstream tradition. We seek to bridge the gap between what is contemporary and what is historical.”
In fact, they also perform and re-interpret traditional pieces, although these are carefully selected. There is a practical reason for this. Dieltjens feels that as musicians they need to be in touch with their past, and their performances should bring on board centuries of music making.
“Take Liszt and Ligeti, both Hungarian, but coming from different eras. We leave it to the audience to see if a link remains. There are some pieces even by the likes of Chopin which belong to their time, but some pieces keep their value for contemporary audiences.”
This is perhaps the greatest risk contemporary music is running, that of being stuck in a particular time, and not engaging with its current and future audiences.
Dieltjens is very cautious about this topic. “I cannot generalise, but I think many composers assume the audience is already prepared, and that is something our group wants to avoid. We don’t like playing to specialised audiences,” he says.
That is why their Malta programme was an introduction to ‘modern’ music. It includes music by Bartok, Zahra and Messiaen’s Quatour Pour la Fin du Temps. I pause on the final work. This is a work which was written and premiered in a concentration camp while the composer was detained as a prisoner of war.
“The thing with this piece is that it’s very serious, but it has some kind of overwhelming transcendental character which I believe nobody can miss, even if you are unprepared… there is a certain manipulation of time felt by everyone, prepared or not.”