Vincent van Gelder: Press

Vincent Van Gelder made his New York recital debut at Weill Hall on May 11 as a recipient of Artists International’s Special Presentation Award. Mr. Van Gelder, who was born Rotterdam, The Netherlands, began playing the piano at age 12 and holds BM and MM degrees in piano performance from the Conservatory of Hogeschool Enschede. His teachers were P. Zandmanis at Latvian Academy of Music, also P. Ruhlman, F. Oldenburg, B. Pierweiweijer, Arnis Carbondale and Wilfred Delphin. Van Gelder holds another Master’s degree from Southern Illinois University, and also a DMA in piano performance from the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Dr. Van Gelder is a formidably equipped, no-nonsense virtuoso and his diversified program of music by Beethoven 32 Variations in C Minor, Chopin Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise, Op. 22, Prokofiev Two episodes from Romeo and Juliet along with his Suggestion Diabolique, Rachmaninoff his Prelude, Op. 23 No. 2, Etude Tableau, Op. 33 No. 5 and Serenade, Op. 3 No. 4 as arranged by Arkadi Volodos and Liszt the ubiquitous Liebestraum No. 3 and two Hungarian Rhapsodies, Nos. 3 and 12 commenced in an unfrivolous, honest and un-egocentric manner. The Chaconne-like Beethoven variations were held together with arrow-straight directness and imposing structural firmness. I liked much of the Chopin too, and though the refreshingly severe, unfustian regularity of its opening Andante Spianato was, of course, a welcome departure from the usually encountered hydrant-sniffing and simpering “feeling”, the following Polonaise danced in (well), wooden shoes.
Dr. Van Gelder’s interpretative and temperamental style is remarkably redolent of what I would have expected from a stereotypical “Dutchman”. In fact his playing at this concert made me recall Cor De Groot, a splendid artist whose Philips LP recordings from the 1950s (released in America by Epic) gave me much pleasure.

[performance of the four Chopin Ballades]: “He brought out the different layers with the precision of a brain surgeon”.

[performance at UNCG's 'Focus on Piano Literature Conference'] The program concluded with Maurice Ravel's 1919-20 La Valse, an orchestral work that was on the composer's mind as early as 1906. Ravel provided both this two-piano version, performed by Vincent van Gelder and Inara Zandmane, as well as a solo piano arrangement. The work is less of a straight-ahead dance as it is an exploration of the inner spirit of a waltz. The composition opens with hallucinogenic whiffs of waltz-like fragments before coalescing into a full-blown dance under bright lights. Van Gelder and Zandmane (a husband-wife team) brilliantly brought the work to life. Full of rhythmic give and take, virtuosic glissandos and, curious, sudden halts, the duo caught the essence of this 12-minute composition that alternates between the dreamy and the grotesque, the elegant and the maniacal.