The Great Unknown: Count Wassenaer

 by Maureen Buja  November 1st, 2026

Sometimes, being too modest can work against you. In the case of Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692–1766), his refusal to put his name on his six Concerti armonici, published in 1740, has led to centuries of confusion about who composed them.

The works are for string and basso continuo and have been so popular that they have very rarely been out of print.

Title page of the VI Concerti armonici, 1740

The Concerti were first printed in The Hague by the Italian violinist Carlo Ricciotti (1681–1756), dedicated to Count Willem van Bentinck (1704–74), a distinguished Anglo-Dutch musical amateur. Ricciotti directed a French opera company in The Hague. Ricciotti and Bentinck were also part of a musical society that included the composer of the Concerti.

Because the dedication is confusing, scholars have assumed the original author was the publisher, Ricciotti. Over the following decades, other composers, including Handel, J. A. Birkenstock, Fortunato Chelleri, and Willem de Fesch, were proposed. Still, the most popular choice was the Italian Baroque master Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736). The amount of music [mis] attributed to Pergolesi would be a problem for musicologists for centuries.

Domenico Antonio Vaccaro: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Museo Storico Musicale del Conservatorio Di Musica San Pietro A Majella)

The elements that made Pergolesi seem like the perfect composer were that the music, though published in the Netherlands, was Roman in style, with four violins (rather than the Vivaldian/Venetian style of three violins), and that its texture matched the Italian style of Corelli and Locatelli. In addition, the music quoted the Roman composer Palestrina.

Pergolesi’s identification as the author was so complete that the Concerti were published as part of his complete works. Because it was given authority as part of the complete works, the Concerti remained popular through the 19th century, and Igor Stravinsky used one movement for his neo-classical ballet, Pulcinella. Declaring Pulcinella as being ‘after Pergolesi’, Stravinsky used the third movement from the Concerto No. 2 as his ‘Tarantella’. 

After all this misdirection, who composed this beloved set of Concerti? It took nearly 240 years to discover that the composer was not Pergolesi (or any other likely suspect) but Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692–1766). It is thought that he hid his identity not because he was a nobody, but because he was someone. His grandfather was Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, supreme commander of the Dutch fleet in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and his father was a general who served under Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Georg Desmarées: Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer Obdam, 1745

Unico studied law and worked in government, serving in diplomatic, military, and business posts. When he was young, he took the obligatory Grand Tour, visiting Germany, France, and perhaps Italy from 1717 to 1718. His musical skills were recognised even as he served as a member of the Dutch Admiralty and a Director of the East India Company.  

In 1979, Dutch musicologist Albert Dunning spoke with colleagues in art history who told him about music manuscripts they had recently seen. Following their lead, Dunning examined these musical manuscripts at Twickel Castle in the Netherlands, the seat of the van Wassenaer family. What he discovered was not only a manuscript of the concerti but also a handwritten preface by Unico that proved his authorship and told how the works came to be published. Finally, a definitive identification of the composer!

Wassenaer wrote in his preface:

These concertos were composed at different times between 1725 and 1740. When they were ready, I took them along to the musical gathering organised in The Hague by Mr Bentinck, myself and some foreign gentlemen. Ricciotti played the first violin. Afterwards I allowed him to make a copy of the concertos. When all six were ready, he asked permission to have them engraved. Upon my refusal he enlisted the aid of Mr Bentinck, to whose strong representations I finally acquiesced, on condition that my name did not appear anywhere on the copy and that he put his name to it, as he did. Mr Bentinck wanted to dedicate them to me; I refused absolutely, after which he told Ricciotti to dedicate them to him. In this way these concertos were published against my wishes. Some of them are tolerable, some middling, others wretched. Had they not been published, I would perhaps have corrected their mistakes, but other business has left me no leisure to amuse myself with them, and I would have caused their editor offence.

It’s not really certain why Wassenaer fought identification with the works. Perhaps a gentleman of his standing wouldn’t associate with a commercial enterprise, or he knew the works could have used some correction. In any case, Ricciotti and Wassenaer’s performance at their musical society convinced Ricciotti to print the works.   

Dunning brought out his new edition of the Concerti in 2003, based on the newly found manuscript, and this has brought renewed interest in these works, which were misidentified for so long. Wassenaer emerges as a composer who incorporated the new styles and techniques of his time into his music. The pieces blend early- and late-Baroque idioms, and, in some ways, look forward to the new Galant style. The string instruments are expertly handled. Although the first and second violins get most of the action, Wassenaer doesn’t shy away from true 7-part writing (4 violins, viola, cello, and bass), with each voice having its own authority. He includes fugues, canons, and even quotations from one of the most distinguished Roman composers, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, in both the 3rd and 5th concerti. The 5th Concerto also has an unusual movement done with muted strings.

As an example of a movement that blends Baroque and Galant style, consider the third movement of Concerto No. 4.

In the first Concerto, Unico includes a cello obbligato part, highlighting its dark, rich sound.

The Concerti weren’t Wassenaer’s only works; some recorder sonatas were (re)discovered and published in the 1990s, and they also serve to reinforce Wassenaer’s unique voice.

The rediscovery of the authorship of a loved piece of music 239 years later is astonishing enough. Discovering a statement about the composer’s participation in Amsterdam’s musical life was another treat, giving us a unique view into the life of an 18th-century diplomat.

In Memory of the Past: Goethe’s ‘Erster Verlust’

by Maureen Buja 

Erster Verlust	First Loss
Ach wer bringt die schönen Tage,	Ah, who can bring back the beautiful days,
Jene Tage der ersten Liebe,	Those days of first love,
Ach wer bringt nur eine Stunde	Ah, who can bring back even one hour
Jener holden Zeit zurück!	Of that lovely time!
Einsam nähr’ ich meine Wunde	Lonely, I nurse my wound
Und mit stets erneuter Klage	And with ever-renewed lament
Traur’ ich um’s verlorne Glück.	I mourn for lost happiness.
Ach, wer bringt die schönen Tage,	Ah, who can bring back the beautiful days,
Jene holde Zeit zurück!	That lovely time!

Joseph Karl Stieler: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at age 79, 1828 (Neue Pinakothek)

Johann von Goethe (1749–1832)’s poem entitled ‘Erster Verlust’ (First loss) was first written in 1785 for his Singspiel Die ungleichen Hausgenossen (The Unequal Housemates), intended to be an aria for the Baroness, in Act II. The play was never completed, sidetracked, perhaps, by Goethe’s plans for his upcoming Italy trip. Luckily, he salvaged the poem (and two others) and included them in his Schriften of 1789. For the Schriften printing, Goethe wrote stanzas 2 and 3 anew.

Because of its small size and simple expression, the poems became a favourite of many composers, with some 50 setting it to music. We will look at the song and its setting over the century from 1813 through 1919. In this 8-line poem, Goethe expresses that painful memory of what was lost when one’s first love is no longer your love. There’s no idea of death, but rather hints of decisions made, time lost, and a mourning for the past.

Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758–1832) was one of Goethe’s favourite composers and became the poet’s musical advisor. He was a detailed chronicler of musical events of his time, and his letters are a prime source of information about significant events, such as the famed 1812 meeting of Beethoven and Goethe. Organised by Bettina Brentano, the two men met in the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz. As expected, they did not agree with each other’s self-assessment: Beethoven thought the poet too loving of the court atmosphere, and Goethe thought the composer had ‘an absolutely uncontrolled personality’. Goethe was 63 years old and Beethoven a mere 42.

Zelter wrote over 200 lieder, 75 of them to texts by Goethe. He detailed his thoughts on lieder writing in a letter to the composer Carl Loewe: the text must take priority, the strophic song is to be preferred to ‘absolute through-composing’, and the accompaniment must stay in the background.

Goethe, for his part, had his musical demands, the primary of which was that the music should support the poet’s words. This led Zelter to write music that was plain and strophic, even when the textual manner was more emotional. The music serves the poet’s words, and we can understand why Goethe was so taken with him. Famously, Goethe preferred Zelter’s setting of the poem Erlkönig, rather than the more dramatic setting by Schubert that is so well known today.

The song was published in 1813 as part of Zelter’s collection of 48 sämmtliche Lieder, Balladen und Romanzen; the four-volume collection was in its second edition by 1816.

Carl Begas: Carl Friedrich Zelter, 1827 (Sing-Akademie zu Berlin)

Franz Schubert (1797–1828) picked up the text in 1815 and made it part of his Op. 5 collection, setting it in a precise and concise manner, and reserving his emotion for the last word of the 2nd stanza, ‘Wunde’ (wound). The minor-key setting is full of wistful memory and desire.

Wilhelm August Reider: Franz Schubert, 1875 after a 1825 watercolour (Vienna Museum)

Bohemian composer Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek (1774–1850) led the musical world of Prague in the first half of the 19th century. He was the central point of the Mozart cult in Prague, and his fame spread through his lieder and piano compositions. Of his 63 lieder, 41 are settings of Goethe, and Goethe made a point of telling Tomášek in 1822 how much he approved of Tomášek’s work.

Tomášek met the 73-year-old poet in the Bohemian town now called Cheb, and after discussing music, poetry and minerals (Goethe had a famous rock collection), the poet encouraged the composer to play for him. Goethe gave him a book of poetry, and the 48-year-old composer played his music from memory. It was after Mignon’s Sehnsucht that the poet exclaimed, ‘you have understood the poem’, and then went on to say that he could not ‘understand how both Beethoven and Spohr could so entirely misinterpret it and treat it as though it were an aria and not a Lied.’

Tomášek’s setting is full of simple declarations, less full of melancholic regret than we find in other settings. There is still the emphasis on ‘Wunde’, but the setting of the first work of the first and last stanza’s first word, ‘Ach’ (Ah), that seems to carry the sharp despair.

Antonín Machek: Portrait of the Composer V. J. Tomášek, after 1816 (Prague: National Gallery)

Felix Mendelssohn’s setting in 1841, as part of his Op. 99 collection Sechs Gesänge, expands the setting enormously, setting the same lines multiple times. The impression of the setting is somehow of deeper regret. The contrasting music for the second verse again puts emphasis on the word ‘wound’. The song concludes with decoration on the word ‘holde’ (lovely), bringing the beloved back one more time.

Horace Vernet: Felix Mendelssohn, 1831

Austrian composer Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) set the poem in 1876, as part of his Op. 9 collection, which set the poetry of Lenau, Goethe, and V. Zuzner. Wolf started writing music to the texts of Goethe at age 15, starting with 3 songs for male chorus.

When he set Erster Verlust, he was following the model set for him already by Reichardt, Zelter, Tomášek and Mendelssohn. Although this early setting, created in 1875 when he was just 15, shows much skill, we’re still dealing with the composer’s juvenilia. It is nothing compared to the lieder where he would show his genius.

Hugo Wolf

Nicolai Medtner (1879–1951) published his op. 6 collection of 9 Goethe-Lieder between 1901and 1905. The majority of Medtner’s published songs are Russian, but Goethe was one of the most important German poets he set to music. Three of his Goethe collections resulted in him being awarded the Glinka Prize in 1909.

The lied was composed as a wedding present for his brother Emil and his bride Anna; however, the present had more than good wishes behind it. Nicolai had been forbidden marriage with Anna, and so his older brother Emil took his place; the marriage was never consummated. Eventually, Emil and Anna divorced, and then Nicolai and Anna were free to marry.

As a collection, it must be regarded as a wedding gift not to his brother but to his sweetheart, and a text such as Erster Verlust becomes particularly poignant. However, since his first lost love would eventually become his wife, this is one time when the story has a happy ending.

Nicolai Medtner

In his setting, Alban Berg (1885–1935) cuts off the last couplet of the poem, setting only the first two stanzas. The work was written in 1905 when he was just beginning as a composer. He worked with Arnold Schoenberg between 1904 and 1911 and was able to combine Schoenberg’s 12-tone technique with his own late-Romantic lyricism. He started with Schoenberg studying harmony, counterpoint, and music theory, and then, from 1907, composition. Even before studying with Schoenberg, he was a prolific composer, with some 80 lieder to his name. Schoenberg thought he was stuck in song, and over the years of study, made him work on his instrumental compositions.

Of all the Second Viennese School composers, he’s the one who has remained the most listenable. His operas remain in the repertoire.

The simplicity of this early song compared to what we know of his later works gives us true indication of what he learned from Schoenberg. Erster verlust was one of only three songs Berg wrote to a Goethe text, as he gradually started working with texts by more modern poets.

Alban Berg

Justus Hermann Wetzel (1879–1973) set Goethe’s text in 1919, as part of his Op. 3 Liederkreis collection. Over his long life, Wetzel composed over 600 songs of which fewer than 150 are still in the repertoire.

His style of clear melodic lines matched with an intense mood makes this song sound less like 1919 and more like 1819.

Erick Büttner: Justus Hermann Wetzel, 1930 (Berlin: Neue Natioanalgalerie)

Tracking the setting of this song for a century reveals an enormous amount about what composers read into the text and how tastes in lied writing circle around. Goethe’s insistence on the primacy of the text (as befitted him as the poet) could be seen as standing in the way of the composer’s need to create interpretations and filter for the material. Probably one of the most effective settings is Medtner’s, truly written for a lost love and given to the woman herself.

A composer takes his text and then decides what to emphasise (‘wunde’ or ‘Ach’) and how to place that emphasis. Realisation of the meaning of the text can happen in many ways. Not every composer wrote in a minor key, and not every composer read the poem the same way. A survey such as this gives us a deeper appreciation for the way certain composers (including Schubert) were able to find their way through such a seriously emotional path.

A Debut of Note: Himari

by Maureen Buja  October 7th, 2026

The young Japanese violinist Himari (b. 2011 as Himari Yoshimura) made her American concert debut with Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor with the Santa Fe Symphony in 2023, aged 11, and then made her European debut with the work in 2025, age 13. That debut with the Berlin Philharmonic is captured on her debut recording on Decca Classics, appropriately called Debut.

Himari © himari-info.com

Himari started her violin study at age 3, working with Koichiro Harada and Machie Oguri. She made her debut with a professional orchestra at age 6, and at age 11 she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ida Kavafian. At age 13, she signed an exclusive contract with Decca Classics, becoming the label’s youngest female artist.

In competition, Himari has been awarded grand prizes at the Arthur Grumiaux Competition in Belgium (2019) and the International Competition for Young Violinists in Honour of Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawski, Lublin, Poland (2021), as well as the 26th Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy and the Kogan International Violin Competition in Belgium. She plays the 1717 ‘Hamma’ Stradivari on loan from Mr Yusaku Maezawa. Her bow is on loan from the Munetsugu Collection.

Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880) wrote his first violin concerto in 1851 while on tour in Russia with his brother. After returning to give concerts in Leipzig, Paris, and London, he returned to Russia in 1860 at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein. He spent the next 12 years there, variously as solo violinist to the Tsar, leader of the opera Orchestra, and professor of violin at Rubinstein’s conservatory. When he returned to his touring career in 1872, he extended his travels to North America with Rubinstein. When he returned to Europe in 1875, he was appointed professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory. His health was increasingly frail, and he had to leave the stage during a performance of his Violin Concerto No. 2 in Berlin. Joseph Joachim was in the audience and took his place on stage, replacing the concerto with a performance of the Bach Chaconne on Wieniawski’s violin. Despite this setback, Wieniawski continued his tour out of financial need, but he was often forced to leave the stage, unable to perform. Wieniawski died on 31 March 1880 in the house of Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.

In the first movement, after a first subject in the clarinet and a more lyrical second subject, the violin enters in a technically demanding solo entry in 10ths. The first subject follows, played only on the G string. The rest of the movement includes a brief cadenza, followed by a lyrical passage that gives the violinist a chance to display technique, complete with triple-stopped chords and difficult but dazzling arpeggios. The final coda brings back the first subject.

Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 14 – I. Allegro moderato

Himari plays with authority and assurance, and even her own teacher remarks on her maturity: ‘If you’re listening to Himari and you close your eyes, you wouldn’t realise her age. Inside Himari, there is an older person and a wise musician… she’s immensely talented.’

After this brilliant orchestra debut, Himari fills the rest of the album with recital material of the highest quality, including Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne No. 16 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, No. 2 (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Leopold Godowsky’s Triakontameron: XI. Alt Wien (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Jean Sibelius’ Mazurka, Op. 81, No. 1; and Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor (transcribed by Nathan Milstein). These are works by the virtuosos of their day, and even Sibelius’ Mazurka is technically demanding, with a cadenza-like opening, double stopping, and huge leaps in the melodic line, requiring a virtuoso hand.

She closes the album with more Henryk Wieniawski, with his Fantasia on Themes from Gounod’s ‘Faust’, Op. 20.

With its mix of orchestral and recital material, Himari’s debut recording gives us an exceptional view of her skills. Sometimes, as happens on live recordings, her leaps may fall a hair short, but that’s the excitement of live performance. In the piano and violin works, where Chelsea Wang, who made her own orchestral debut at age 6, ably accompanies her, we have a more traditional format. Still, again, Himari’s choice of works distinguishes her. In Wieniawski’s Faust Fantasia, she has the vision to create a coherent storyline amid all the virtuoso fireworks.

Himari: Debut (Wieniawski, Chopin, Sibelius, and Godowsky)

Himari, violin; Berlin Philharmonic with Sebastian Weigle, conductor; Chelsea Wang, piano
Decca Classics 00028948722099
Release date: 25 September 2026

A Fantasy About a Fantasia: Henry Purcell and Elliott Carter

 by Maureen Buja  May 7th, 2021

Henry Purcell

In the summer of 1680, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) started to experiment with an older musical form, the fantasia. The basic structure of a fantasia is the construction of several musical phrases, or points, each of which is given a contrapuntal working out before going on to the next one. Purcell would have been familiar with these from Matthew Locke’s (c. 1621-1677) fantasia sets of a generation earlier. Purcell brought his own ideas to the form, making each point full of theatrical gestures, and adding in chromaticism and dissonance.

In Purcell’s Fantazia Upon One Note, his only fantasia for 5 parts, one instrument, the tenor viol, plays only one note, middle C. Around this still point, the other instruments play their parts, from the gentle opening to the triumphal ending. It’s only in the middle, in a minor choral section, that the tenor viol has a brief ‘solo’ appearance.  

Viols as illustrated in Michael Praetorius: Syntagma musicum: Vol. II De Organographia: Appendix: Theatrum Instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia (1620)

The tenor viol part is difficult to hear on a recording but is much easier to see in a performance.

American composer Elliott Carter (1908-2012) felt that the dramatic nature of Purcell’s work, ‘a repeated, tolling, bell-like note sounding through musical episodes of contrasting character,’ was seldom achieved in performance. The tenor viol’s middle C was lost in the musical mix. His arrangement of the Purcell fantasia was designed to bring out that lost middle C and by moving it to a brass ensemble, could change the dramatic possibilities of the work.

Elliott Carter

The work was created in 1974 as ‘A Christmas Present for the American Brass Quintet,’ as the dedication reads.

It is not known why Purcell took up the writing of fantasias in 1680, but in doing so, he left us a wonderful farewell gift to a musical style that was quickly fading. His 1680 works are considered the last music written for the viol before its modern revival starting in the mid–20th century with England’s Viola da Gamba Society, founded in 1948.

Musicians and Artists: Stravinsky and Benois

 by Maureen Buja  January 31st, 2021

Alexandre Benois: Self-Portrait (1893)

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes hit Europe like a storm: no one had ever seen ballet taken to this level. Founded in 1909 by Diaghilev and lasting 20 years, the Ballet was based in Paris and traveled around Europe and to North and South America. Because of the Russian Revolution, the Ballets Russes never played in Russia. Its productions continue to be staged today.

Stravsinky and Nijinsky
in his Petrushka costume

Diaghilev commissioned scores from the young composers of the day, including Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy (Jeux, Images (1913)), Sergei Prokofiev (Chout (1921) and other), Erik Satie (Parade (1917)), and Maurice Ravel (Daphnis et Chloé (1909)) and commissioned sets from the young artists of the day, including Vasily Kandinsky, Alexandre Benois, Pablo Picasso (Parade (1917)), and Henri Matisse (Le Chant du rossignol (1920)), and had costumes from Léon Bakst (Carnaval (1910), Spectre de la rose (1922), and others) and Coco Chanel (Le Train bleu (1924), Orphée, Oedipe Roi).

Benois: Petrushka Costume for Nijinsky (1911)

Alexandre Benois (1870-1960) was a Russian artist and so much more. He was an art critic, a historian, and a designer for the Ballets Russes. His whole family were in the arts: his father an architect, his brothers were a painter and an architect and his sister married the composer Nikolai Tcherepnin. In 1901, he was scenic director of the Mariinksy Theatre in St. Petersburg and moved to Paris in 1905. He started working with Diaghilev from the very beginning, having known him in Russia in the last years of the 19th century.

In 1911, Benois designed what was considered the highlight of his work with the Ballets Russes: the sets and costumes for Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Benois: Petrushka’s Cell (1911)

Petrushka, a puppet, falls in love with the Ballerina, who is also loved by the more powerful Moor. The puppet tradition in Russia picked up by Benois was based on his own memories of seeing the Petruska story told in puppet theatres in the street. In the street theatres, Petrushka has a red dress, a red hat, and, often, a red nose. In Benois’ designs, the red is retained for Petrushka’s cuffs, the edge of his ruff and hat, and in the design of his trousers.

Petrushka’s room depicts mountain, clouds, and a starry night – on the wall hangs a portrait of the Magician (his master who brought him to life) and a devil guards the door to prevent him leaving.

His rival, the Moor, has a much more lavish layout, calling to mind the designs by Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes. Instead of the lonely images in Petrushka’s world, fruits and flowers and animals populate this world.

I

Benois: The Moor’s Cell (1911)

The tragic story comes to its end, with the Moor killing his rival, but Petrushka seems to reappear, thumbing his nose at his rival and perhaps returning as a ghost to haunt him.

Nijinsky as Petrushka (1911)

With Nijinsky in the role of the doomed Petrushka, the ballet was a success and became one of the most popular of the Ballets Russes productions. Even now, it is generally performed using both the original costume designs and sets, as well as Fokine’s choreography.

In writing for Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet troupe, Stravinsky was transformed from an innovative Russian composer to a cutting-edge international composer. His music for the Nijinsky-choreographed The Rite of Spring two years later was the shock performance of the year and he continued each year with works that continue to catch our ear today.

Symphonic Fish

 by Maureen Buja  March 14th, 2026

Dutch trombonist, conductor, and composer Johan de Meij (b. 1953) made his international name in 1988 with his first symphony, The Lord of the Rings. Since then, he had gone on to become a noted composer for wind orchestra.

Johan de Meij

In his 1991 work Aquarium, Meij looks into the waters for both common and exotic sea creatures.

He opens with a trio of fish, starting with many people’s first Aquarium fish: the Neon Tetra. A freshwater fish from the streams of the Amazon basin in South America, its brightly coloured stripes make it visible to other tetra, particularly as one of its habitats is the blackwater streams, which are quite acidic. The fish has a light-blue back, a silver-white abdomen and two stripes: one iridescent blue that runs over its back and an iridescent red stripe that runs along its sides. The fish is partially transparent. At night, the blue and red stripes become grey or black as it rests; the colours return in the morning. This response to lighting conditions helps it survive.

Neon Tetra, Paracheirodon innesi (Photo by Holger Krisp)

The Neon Tetra theme becomes a motive throughout all three movements.

The Electric Eel doesn’t get a theme but rather a rhythm. In some public aquariums, they hook up a speaker to the water around the electric eel so visitors can hear its pulses.

Electric Eel (Photo by David Liittschwager)

The Angelfish is represented with cluster chords as though the body decorations on the fish have become the score.

Angelfish

The second movement starts off with one of the most familiar of sea creatures, the sea horse. Its head and neck resemble those of a horse, aided by the fact that the sea horse is usually upright. It has a curled tail that helps it hold onto vegetation. The earliest sea horses were found in Italy, in the Marecchia River. A kind of pipefish, the sea horse is thought to have become its own species when tectonic events resulted in large bodies of shallow water. The shallow water and sunlight encouraged the growth of seagrass that the sea horse holds with its prehensile tail to hold itself upright.

Sea Horse (photo by Florin Dumitrescu)

The Zebrafish is another freshwater fish, this time from South Asia, found in the water of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. The fish has five uniform blue stripes on the side of its body and is a popular fish in home aquariums.

Zebrafish (photo by Yael Noy)

At the beginning, the seahorse peeks out from its seagrass home and starts to talk with the zebrafish. As the movement progresses, the unison zebrafish theme gets more and more menacing.

The final movement is about guppies. They come from South America’s northeast corner, and are many home aquariums’ first fish.

Guppy, Poecilia reticulata (photo by Per Harald Olsen)

Unlike the other fish in Aquarium, guppies come in several different colours and styles, in the picture below, are from the top right, the ribbon mosaic RREA, mosaic chilli, double sword, orange pintail, Moscow red RREA, and cobra snakeskin (top left).

Varieties of guppies (photo by Melanochromis)

The final movement emulates most people’s experience with guppies. It starts with only two instruments (trumpet and xylophone), but then, as more guppies appear, more instruments pile in. The Guppy theme is presented in the piccolo and alto saxophone. As the movement progresses, themes from the earlier themes ‘swim’ by as well. 

Meij has managed to give us individual themes or rhythms for each animal represented and has given them to us with a kind of swinging nautical feel. In the full symphonic sound, this is a far cry from Baby Shark!