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Chamber Music
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Whereas African musical tradition is mainly concerned with rhythm (often in a counterpoint of three or more rhythmical levels), and Asian tradition with melody (developing an acute sense of microtones), European tradition deals with harmony. Writing for philharmonic musicians requires a convincing solution for the harmonic problem. It is the Schoenbergian problem of twentieth-century music. (See also: 'Een zanglijn overzee' in 'Het componeren van de hemel'.) Writing for individual musicians in a chamber group allows the composer
more harmonic freedom, even to the point where harmony becomes irrelevant.
For many modernist composers harmony becomes the arbitrary result of counterpoint,
with only one rule to follow: avoid the consonant! I like virtuosity in music, that heroic reaching for the impossible by the Olympic athlete for the impossible. As a trained piano player I've always written music that was too difficult for me to play. I never became a piano champion, and one needs to be that to play my three piano pieces, as they can be found on the cd's: |
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SOLO The piano is my life's instrument, although I've only written three solo piano pieces to date, and a concert piece (Etudes). For more information, see under CD-chamber music and the tenth Hour - Design. |
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Inscriptions (1959), Anathema (1969), and Polonaise '81 (1981). Inscripties, op. 6 (1959) Anathema, op. 19 (1969) Polonaise, op. 29 (1981) |
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For solo recorder and tape I made a piece for Frans Bruggen, called Hypothema, op. 20 (1969) |
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In 1957, while still working as a student with Kees van Baaren, I was
a conscript for a year and became a hopelessly inefficient assistant of
the 'selection officer'. I then wrote a piece for solo flute SERIAL SELECTIONS |
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DUO'S My ideal of piano playing was always: how to make the instrument sing and I never thought of it as a percussion-instrument, as all 'Stravinskyans' do. Singing is my life-long preoccupation, and I was already in my thirties
when I started to take singing lessens. How could you aspire to be an
opera-composer if you can't sing yourself, I thought, knowing that many
of my colleagues didn't even bother to find out whether they had a tenor,
a bass or a baritone themselves. |
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KIND EN KRAAI (Child and crow) It is a monodrama of about 40 minutes for high soprano and piano, dedicated to my seven year old son, who later told me it had given him ugly nightmares. |
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Kind en kraai [Child and Crow], op. 26 (1977) |
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For Lenny at 70 Program note
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After many years of opera- and symphony-writing I decided to return to
chamber music and wrote a duo for violin and piano, called Genes for violin and piano, |
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TRIO Shocked by the brutal murder of Salvador Allende in 1973 by the monstrous
Pinochet, I wrote a lament for soprano, violin and piano, on a text by
Pablo Neruda: Canto General, op. 24 (1974) |
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The Letter Scene from Houdini, an arrangement for two singers and piano from the opera Houdini. De briefscène |
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QUARTET
Introduction and Adagio, op. 2 (1954) Twee stukken [Two Pieces], op. 7 (1959) |
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QUINTET In 1959 I went to London for a year to study with Matyas Seiber, and
to get away from the then very provincial musical climate of my homeland.
There in the Wigmore Hall I heard a wind quintet by Harrison Birtwhistle
and immediately decided to write one myself. It became the Improvisations and Symphonies, op. 11 (1960) |
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SEXTET Back in my hometown, early 1960, I participated in a dadaist group called the Mood Engineering Society, for which I wrote a Sextet for three musicians and three actors. But I was so ashamed of the result and the performances that I took the next train to Basel, to Boulez, to really get to work. I immediately withdrew the piece, though it had the first 'clockwise' notation I ever used. |
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SEPTET In 1956, while still a student of Kees van Baaren, I wrote a Septet, just as he himself had done some years earlier. It was premiered in the Gaudeamus-week the following year, and received with it my first prize (of 125 guilders). It was also my first piece that was publicly hailed (by Hans Reichenfeld) as a 'masterpiece'. On top of that it was the first piece to cross the small Dutch borders for me, as it was played at an international festival of ISCM in 1958. Septet, op. 3 (1956) |
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OCTET The prize for the Septet inspired the Dutch government to commission another septet from me. While still being a pain in the ass in the army, I argued that I couldn't work for two national departments at the same time. Besides, I humbly asked if it could be an additional 'tet', and lo and behold, I was freed within a fortnight from the military and wrote an Octet for winds (1958), a 'mobile' score that was premièred at Gaudeamus that year. This really is a civilized country! Octet, op. 4 (1958) |
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ORGAN
I wrote three pieces for public places: Passacaglia and Fugue for organ. It was premiered in the Dom-cathedral
in Utrecht in Gaudeamus 1954, and was my debut as a composer.(Also on
cd) *** COLLAGES for 31-tone organ (1962); Written for the unique organ of prof.A.D.Fokker in the Teyler Museum in Haarlem.
*** THE TONE CLOCK, for a public clock in Almere (only realized on the computer.) The Tone Clock, op. 34 (1987)
ALARM, op. 40 (1994) |
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