Performance: Wim Statius Muller, piano

Wals Nostalgia, Op. 2, No. 22 is one of Muller’s most famous pieces. It was written “on a dreary, rainy day in Holland, when sunny Curaçao was sorely missed” (Outhere Music). Nostalgia was composed during the years Muller spent working in the Netherlands, inspired by the nostalgic memories of his home island, Curaçao.

“Born in Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles, pianist and composer Wim Statius Muller (1930-2019) shares, along with Charles Ives, the strange fortune of having studied composition at a prestigious school before turning to an entirely different profession. After spending much of his life selling insurance, Ives was ultimately recognized as one of the United States’ most original composers. In the case of Muller, who came to be known as ‘the Chopin of Curaçao,’ after a few short years teaching piano at Ohio State University, he spent just over 30 years in various security and counter-espionage organizations! Both musicians also shared an attraction for popular music and great freedom of scope in their compositional styles, since their decision to work as amateurs did not limit them to any particular aesthetic.

Like much of Curaçao’s music, Wim Statius Muller’s works owe a great deal to Frédéric Chopin, whose scores were brought to this island off the coast of Venezuela between Aruba and Bonaire by composer Jules François Blasini (1847-1886). Chopin’s music soon inspired local musicians to compose a ‘Caribbean mazurka,’ which was long the national dance of Curaçao and in some ways marked the birth of classical music in the Netherlands Antilles. This influenced a long line of composers, including Jan Gerard Palm (1831-1906), Joseph Sickman Corsen (1853-1911) and Jacobo Palm (1887-1982), Muller’s first piano teacher, to whom he dedicated the waltz Shon Coco (Op. 2, No. 2). Other influences apparent in Muller’s music are the Trinidadian calypso, whose rhythm spread throughout the Eastern Caribbean. Muller also admitted to a fondness for Cuban rumba, which he used ‘maybe as an acknowledgement of the debt all Antilleans owe to Cuba, for the enrichment of their musical traditions’ (Muller, preface to Antillean Dances). However, during the 25 years he spent away from his native island to work in the Netherlands or Belgium, it was the rhythms he heard in his youth that he recalled, those of the waltz, the tumba and the danza (which is a more ‘presentable’ version).”

– Outhere Music

“Wim Statius Muller studied at the Juilliard School in New York, taught piano and music history at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, later combined his life-long dedication to music with a career in government. His last posting before retirement in 1995 was at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, from where he returned to his native Curaçao. He has since been active again as a performer in the islands, in Europe and the United States.

Many of his short piano pieces in Antillean rhythms have been recorded by Wim Statius Muller and – since the publication of a selection of his works by the American Music Company –by other pianists as well.”

– Classical Music Bonaire