Martijn Padding festival composer November Music

He has been making a career for himself for some time now, but this autumn Martijn Padding has suddenly come under the spotlight.

At the beginning of the summer he won an important UNESCO award for his First Harmonium Concerto. After a performance at the Gaudeamus Music Week in September, the work will be repeated another two times in November, one of which in ’s-Hertogenbosch at November Music where Padding will be ‘festival composer’. Meet an open-minded artist in search of the truth.

Composer Martijn Padding has just ordered a set of ten CDs by Bob Dylan. ‘Dylan speaks directly to my heart,’ he says, sitting on the terrace at his home in Amsterdam. ‘I love his raw sound and his tinkering on the guitar. And he doesn’t tell lies, he is genuine.'

Padding was born in 1956, the year in which Elvis and rock and roll conquered the world. He grew up with pop music and Beethoven, without worrying about the imaginary dividing line between popular and classical music. As a pianist he is equally fond of Chopin as Thelonius Monk, and in his compositions he might equally be inspired by Balinese gamelan as by Stockhausen’s oeuvre.

Isn’t there any danger of eclecticism? Martijn Padding: ‘I consider myself versatile, not eclectic. However, to a certain extent I do admire the first polystylist in music history, Mahler. It is amazing how he managed to combine Jewish music, Tyrolean melodies and classical forms. Although I think the result is sometimes absolutely awful, I do appreciate the statement.’

In Nicht eilen, nicht schleppen (1993) Padding pays uninhibited homage to Mahler. He lets a completely stripped down ensemble accompany the death-struggle of his sick predecessor. Unusual instrumental combinations, such as recorder and electric guitar, contribute to the alienation.

‘A combination like that is typical of the Maarten Altena Ensemble, now MAE’, says Padding. ‘I always write on commission and I like to be led by the character of the musicians. It’s the people who inspire me most.’

His faithful musical friends include pianist Gerard Bouwhuis, violinist Heleen Hulst and Paul Koek, artistic director of the Veenfabriek. With this company Padding nearly every year stages a production that is a marriage of music and theatre. Not as large-scale as an opera production, where the complicated collaboration forces the composer to make artistic concessions. This is exactly why Padding looks back with mixed feelings at his first and, up to now, only opera, Tattooed Tongues, which was premiered at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 2001.

The coming months Martijn Padding will continue the series of small solo concertos for the Asko | Schönberg Ensemble. He has already received recognition from unexpected quarters. In June 2009 the First Harmonium Concerto was the winning composition at UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers. Padding: ‘It is an alienating piece, in which I pass over the supposedly lame and devote character of the ‘psalm pump’. My approach is completely serious, but at the same time I take the mickey out of things.’

Michel Khalifa