This tribute concert celebrates the musical life of the still-living New York composer Joel Mandelbaum. The programme includes works by composers and prominent figures he met during his visit in 1963 to the 31-tone organ – which at that time was still housed in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem – including Professor Adriaan Fokker, organist Anton de Beer and composer Hans Kox. In addition, a work by Mandelbaum’s American colleague Abram M. Plum, who also engaged with the 31-tone system, will be heard.
Joel Mandelbaum was born in 1932 in the United States, where he earned his doctorate in music theory at Indiana University in 1961 with his dissertation Multiple Division of the Octave and the Tonal Resources of 19-tone Temperament. At Queens College of the City University of New York, he taught from 1961 to 1999 and served as chair of the music faculty there. His interest in microtonality was sparked by a lecture by the famous German composer Paul Hindemith, in which Hindemith enthusiastically outlined various historical tuning theories, only to then attempt to refute them in a rather unconvincing manner. Mandelbaum subsequently began a correspondence with Professor Adriaan Fokker, which led to a six-week stay in Haarlem in 1963, together with his wife Ellen. During that period he composed, under Fokker’s guidance, in Euler’s genera. The result was 10 Studies in 31-Tone Temperament, which premiered on the Fokker organ in Haarlem. He also had several meetings with the 31-tone organist Anton de Beer, from which the piece Speelmuziek 1 on the programme originates. Mandelbaum also had a warm and memorable meeting with composer Hans Kox and his then wife Anita Pereboom, as well as with the well-known violin duo Bouw Lemkes and Jeanne Vos, for whom this latter work was composed. The work Serenade for Two Violins in 31-tone tuning by Hans Kox will be performed in the programme.
About his encounters in 1963 with Adriaan Fokker and others, Mandelbaum wrote the following: “This Dutch mathematician and music theorist invited me to Haarlem to compose on the microtonal organ of the Teylers Foundation and to introduce me to the possibilities of the 31-tone tuning, which he had inherited from seventeenth-century mathematicians such as Huygens and Euler. He himself and his closest collaborators – the violinists Bouw and Jeanne Lemkes, Jan van Borssum Buysman, curator at the Teylers Foundation, Hans Kox, fellow composer, and Anton de Beer, the resident player of the microtonal organ – were all very welcoming and helpful.”
During the presentation of the archifoon on 1 November 1970, the interrogation scene from his opera The Dybbuk premiered at the Teylers Foundation. Mandelbaum later also wrote other microtonal works in the 31-tone tuning, including 3 Dream Songs (1971), Four Miniatures for Archifoon (1979), Sonata in 31-tone temperament for Two Violins (1987) and Woodwind Quintet no. 2 (1991). Although the majority of his oeuvre is written for conventional instruments and tunings, in which he employs a predominantly conservative tonal language, he nevertheless makes regular use of the natural seventh overtone in some of these compositions.
At Mandelbaum’s initiative, George Secor realised a 31-tone variant of the Scalatron at Queens College, an electronic instrument with variable pitch used for demonstrations on the history of tunings and for performances of compositions. At the request of organist Ere Lievonen, the Prelude for Scalatron or other 31-tone keyboard from 1978 by Abram M. Plum is therefore also performed on the Fokker organ. Plum studied composition at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he earned his doctorate in 1962. In addition, he studied composition in 1956–1957 with Luigi Dallapiccola in New York. From 1965 to 1991 he taught composition, electronic music, music theory, non-Western music and piano at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, where he remained part-time as an accompanist from 1991 to 2002. Whether Abram Plum also met Adriaan Fokker and/or Anton de Beer can no longer be stated with certainty.
The concert is performed by violinists Jellantsje de Vries and Natálie Kulina, who already gained experience with the repertoire in 2025 during the concert 75 Years of the Fokker Organ. The experienced soprano Valeria Mignaco, a member of the resident ensemble Vokalprojekt 31 since its foundation in 2015, sings in the final work of the programme. All-rounder Ere Lievonen plays the Fokker organ.