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In 1996 Willem Tanke wrote an organ piece called Stillness which became a metaphor for his musical practice. It captures a vision referring to his ancestors, who during many centuries were peasant labourers in the fields with a small piece of land: "It is springtime. At the end of a hard day's work a farm worker is resting a while before going home. He is leaning against a tree, his face towards the late afternoon sun, his thoughts directed nowhere. Suddenly, and for a brief moment, he sees Eternity. Some years later it happens again; after that, no more. But the longing for it encourages him during the rest of his life and strengthens him at the hour of death." Similarly Willem Tanke has two areas of special interest which he pursues every day: the classical organ repertoire and his own compositions and improvisations, solo and with other musicians.  Stillness - version König organ Stevenskerk, Nijmegen Stillness - Michalis Kouloumis, violin, Willem Tanke, piano

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For over fourty years now Willem Tanke has been starting his day with practising organ works of J.S. Bach. He comes closer and closer to a particularly fluent Bach interpretation, making the organ—the most machine-like of instruments—breathe and live:  

 Willem Tanke is infinitely grateful to his former teacher and lifelong friend Jan Welmers. In 1999 he made a CD recording of his majestic Light and Darkness II - Te Deum  in the Stevenskerk in Nijmegen, where Jan Welmers was an organist from 1973 till 2002. Monologen is a piano work which Jan Welmers dedicated to Willem Tanke. It was recorded in the Orgelpark in Amsterdam in 2014:

Jan Welmers - Monologen for piano

Tanke performed the four works for organ and soundtracks of Ton Bruynel at the Holland Festival in 2006. Recordings were issued as part of a 

CD-box with the complete works of Ton Bruynel.

At the König organ in Nijmegen in 2017

Photo by Henk ten Holt

Willem Tanke developed a truly original musical language of his own:

The Story of Saint Michael and the Dragon

Between 1998 and 2000, as an organist of The African Choir of the Scots International Reformed Church in Rotterdam, he learnt around forty songs from Ghana and Cameroon. In 2006 and 2007 he lectured at symposia on Indian classical music and improvisation and composition at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai.

Collage with the Loret organ at Berkel-Enschot

Photo and composition by Dragan

Between 1997 and 2007 Tanke issued three CDs and two SuperAudioCDs with his own music, played on famous historical organs and a Yamaha SY-99 synthesizer. In 2014 he recorded an album (not issued) with Friso van Wijck, drums, and Ruben Verbruggen, saxophone on which they explore the boundaries of avant-garde jazz:

Playlist trio Turnstone

An innovating feature of Willem Tanke's language consists of a virtuoso way of playing with the left hand, inspired by percussion instruments which generate melodies out of rhythmic patterns, like tabla and darbuka. A specially designed keyboard with three manuals allows him to perform his music on any location:

Sounds of Expectation

From 1988 until 2000 Tanke was a professor of organ as a main subject at HKU, University of the Arts, Utrecht. Since 2001 he has been teaching theory and improvisation at Codarts, University of the Arts, Rotterdam.

He documents his expertise on a special website: Playing Keyboard Instruments in the 21st Century

 

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As a professor at Codarts, University of the Arts, Rotterdam, Willem Tanke communicates the vision of interpretation, improvisation/composition and analysis as essential parts of the daily practice. He initiated a course named Rhythmic Melodic Patterns in the 21st Century for students of the classical, jazz, world music and pop academies:

RIME - Rotterdam Imagination & Magic Ensemble - Sequence One

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For my own music I regard the Hauptwerk Organ as an extraordinary synthesizer. The following text for "Olivier Messiaen and the flutist of the Chauvet cave" shows how its stimulates my imagination:

"In 2017 I saw Werner Herzog's "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams", a fascinating film documentary about the Chauvet Cave in the south of France. Evidently, a flute was found in the cave, made of the bone of a vulture and probably about 30.000 years old. To my astonishment this flute appeared to be made for pentatonic melodies, similar to what I refer to as "timeless modality". I had a view of a flutist in the cave, 30.000 years ago, imitating a bird that might well have been a far ancestor of a bird that Olivier Messiaen transcribed in his atonal style in the 20th century, while traveling around France. Consequently, in this piece I use timeless, pentatonic melodies in combination with atonal melodies based on passages from organ works by Messiaen which I internalised over the years and now use for improvisation."

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Ralph Blakely on Willem Tanke's Super Audio CD Meditations for a lent in American Record Guide:

"I reviewed two fantasies by Willem Tanke in the March/April issue this year. I found Tanke one of the most fascinating composers I had encountered. Now, this work confirms and augments  that judgement...However, ingenuity does not make art; it is the remarkable beauty of this work that does.  This recording will be a the top of my critic’s-choice list for the year. I believe it may be the most important recording I’ve reviewed for ARG. Tanke wrote that he intended to explore the direction music is headed in the 21st Century. If that be so, I am excited about where it is going."

Willem Tanke develops a new way of playing keyboard instruments, inspired by percussion instruments which generate melodies out of rhythmical patterns, like tabla and darbuka:

Train in the sky - Renato Penêda/percussion, Willem Tanke/piano

He gives a new dimension to avant-garde jazz and improvised music by putting atonal bird song passages from organ works of Olivier Messiaen in an entirely new context:

TURNSTONE - Friso van Wijck/drums, Ruben Verbruggen/saxophone, Willem Tanke/piano 

Willem Tanke uses the mobile Haupwerk Organ—possibly in combination with an analogue synthesizer—to create new music on a variety of locations, no longer depending on churches: 

Loops and Echoes # 28 

Some of his organ pieces have no deeper meaning than that of expressing a mood of sincere, uncomplicated joy:

Listening to the fairies - Martijn Alsters/flute, Willem Tanke/organ

His musicianship is rooted in the quiet concentration of his contemplative pieces:

Stillness - version König-organ Nijmegen (1774-1776)

 

CLASSICAL ORGAN REPERTOIRE

Through his own music Willem Tanke learnt to play the classical organ repertoire in a particularly fluent and profound way, making the organ—the most machine-like of instruments—breathe and live:  

J.S. Bach - Prelude and fugue in c minor BWV 546

J.S. Bach - Wir glauben all' an einen Gott, Vater BWV 740 

As one of very few organists Willem Tanke masters the huge technical difficulties in Max Reger's major organ works with the utmost sensitivity and expression:

Max Reger - Variationen und Fuge über ein Originalthema fis-moll Op. 73 

Max Reger - Fantasie und Fuge d-moll Op. 135b 

Willem Tanke's CD and DVD recordings of the complete organ works by Olivier Messiaen have been critically acclaimed:

Olivier Messiaen - Le Verbe (part two) 

Olivier Messiaen - Les yeux dans les roues 

Olivier Messiaen - Les deux murailles d'eau 

Willem Tanke believes that his musicianship is not primarily an expression of his personal feelings, but a manifestation of a supernatural source, coloured by those feelings. He documents his expertise on a special website, called Playing Keyboard Instruments in the 21st Century

His recordings are almost always made in one track, without edits, to preserve the natural flow of performance and provide authenticity.

Willem Tanke is particularly grateful to Jan Welmers, his former organ teacher and lifelong friend, for having stimulated all aspects of his musicianship.

Copy "Paradoxically"

Paradoxically, Willem Tanke's good fortune has been that his musicianship came hardly under the notice of the genral public, allowing hom to develop his musicianship entirely according to his own insights.