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:
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:
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:
Some of his organ pieces have no deeper meaning than that of expressing a mood of sincere, uncomplicated joy:
His musicianship is rooted in the quiet concentration of his contemplative pieces:
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:
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:
Willem Tanke's CD and DVD recordings of the complete organ works by Olivier Messiaen have been critically acclaimed:
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.
