Voormolen: Tableaux des Pays-Bas 1 (1921) -- a "premiere" recording

This suite is among the first works for piano by Alexander Voormolen (1895-1980). This suite consists of three pieces and one can hear influence from Debussy's "Images". The composer gave a peculiar Dutch taste to the suite by introducing old Dutch songs and the sound of carillon.

When I visited Netherland on business in 2000, I visited Alb Harn Piano in Groningen (I do not why, but I remember the name). I asked the shop keeper about Dutch composers and he kindly introduced me some. Modern scores were too complicated to me, but when he understood that my specialty was Debussy, he took out this suite. I devoured the score at the hotel and later practiced it at home. Unfortunately there was a problem of misprints and I could play only the first piece then. Like I stopped practicing Franck, I stopped there.

Recently I searched in youtube for any performances of this suite. None came up (later I found the first of the three), but there were small takes out of Tableux des Pays-Bas serie 2. They are so interesting that I resumed my study on serie 1. I went through the score and this time I found my solutions to the misprints. The second and third pieces suffer much from the misprints. Then I asked Durant-Salabert about the revision of the score, and they kindly confirmed that the current version of their product has the same contents. I decided to include my suggestions of 'corrections' in the movie. It is a great pleasure if they help other piano lovers.

Here I tried to play cleanly and objectively. My tempo is even slower than usual and my tempo rubato is likely smaller than the composer indicated. Also I wish I had more in propulsion and empathy (in general). Still I am proud that my recording can be a reliable starting point to study this suite. I hope more pianists enjoy this suite and make attractive recordings as well (and concert performances, of course).

instrument: Yamaha C5L