|
Ensembles
|
||||||||||||
| In the early fifties of the last century the opera died, like
the symphony, the novel, the portrait, or God had done before. We revolutionaries were going to make a completely new, post-holocaust culture, in which a New Man would prevent anything like this ever to happen again. And we did as we had promised to do. Astonishing new musical structures, unheard-of before, came into being, in countless new forms. As if suddenly a new forest had been discovered, with an infinite number of hitherto unknown insects. Great days for the insectophiles! |
 |
|
 |
The philharmonic orchestra exploded into specialized ensembles, which found their own specialized public that behaved like little Nabokovs, chasing after new butterflies. To make all this happen (and I'm glad it did!) we needed revolutionary action. With the comrades of Reconstruction we gave an unforgettable performance of our own Nutcracker Suite in the Concertgebouw, with little toy-frogs and extended pamphlets. It caused a public uproar that nearly cost me my life, had I not been rescued by the local police. In those inspiringly uproarious years I wrote several ensemble pieces for wild combinations of instruments: |
|
|
Concerto da camera (1960), for piano, clarinets,
strings and percussion.
|
||
|
Entelechy I, for five instrumental groups (1960), which I wrote while attending Boulez' masterclass in Basel. It was premiered in 1961 in the Donaueschinger Musiktage, under Hans Rosbaud. ENTELECHY I, op. 12 (1960-1961) |
||
|
Entelechy II, for soprano and ten instruments,
is a completely 'mobile form' - ENTELECHY II, op. 13 (1961) |
||
|
Signalement, for six percussionists and three
double basses, was the last piece I wrote in Basel. It was commissioned
by the percussion group of Strassburg and premiered in Boulez' Domain
Musical in Paris SIGNALEMENT, op. 14 (1961)
|
||
|
Back in Amsterdam I wrote: Improvisationsfrom the Labyrinth, for three singers and four instruments (1964). They were part of the opera and graphically a clock-form. |
||
|
Presently this form was further developed in: Clockwise and anti-clockwise, for sixteen wind-instruments (1967) CLOCKWISE and ANTI-CLOCKWISE, op. 17 (1967)
|
||
|
The dream of a mobile score was driven to the point of dissolution of the musical form - just as Guevara wanted to blow up the capitalist bourgois society. On Escalation, for six percussion-players and an orchestra of twenty-five (1968), Thispiece was written for a 'political-demonstrative-experimental' concert ('marxist-leninist-maoist' - to frighten the bourgois) as we organised it in the Carre-theatre in Amsterdam on 31 may 1968, which coincided happily with 'les evenements' in Paris. It caused again a lot of upheavel - 200 policeman surrounded the theatre. But luckily enough (in hindsight) it didn't start the hoped-for revolution in Holland (which would no doubt have ended in Cambodia-like killing fields.) ON ESCALATION, op. 18 (1968) |
||
|
Thema, for oboe solo, wind players, guitars and organs, all electrified (1970) This piece belongs to my most extreme, repetitive and loudest compositions. It was premiered in the Holland Festival 1970 in the Concertgebouw,under my direction. When it was retaken 25 years later in The Hague it was generally considered to be the starting-point of the repetitive-fortissimo 'Hague-school' of 'bulldozer Louis Andriessen'. (But I never aspired to form a 'school' myself. I'd seen enough in Darmstadt and the like - they're always breeding-places of epigonism and fanaticism.) Program
note
|
 |
|
 |
For a theatre production with the Werktheater in Carré
I wrote: To You, for soprano, 4 pianos, 2 organs, 6 guitars, 3 bass guitars and 6 huge hummingtops (1972), all electrified. It was the first time I used a poem by Adrian Mitchell, which pretty much described my own experience during the nazi war. |
|
|
The music and the six spectacular hummingtops had a longlasting and resounding effect on the musical community in Amsterdam. TO YOU, op. 22 (1972) |
 |
|
 |
To You was followed in 1973 by a great lament about the Vietnam war, the cantata The Fifth Season. It was played in the open by the Amsterdam Electric Circus of Floris Guntenaar.
|
|
|
It was recomposed in 2001 and again performed under the title: To Whom for soprano and eleven instruments. Based on the poem To Whom It May Concern by Adrian Mitchell, who wrote it at the height of the Vietnam war in 1968. The obsessive refrain 'Tell me lies about Vietnam' was very much directed at the American and Dutch establishment of those days, but by the time of the second performance in 2001 the same line fitted the communist victors, who had strangled a free press. |
||
| I wrote two pieces for chamber choir, in 1960 and in 1984. The first one, The Fall, can be seen as a first attempt to discover what I later called 'chromatic tonality', and the second one, Adem, as a consistent realisation of that concept. A capella singing in a chromatic style poses some very difficult problems that serialism couldn't solve. | ||
|
Adem,a song for chamber
choir, on an Egyptian text from the times of Achnaton. ADEM [Breath], op. 32 (1984)
|
 |
|
|
|
From the opera Houdini I arranged a fragment for
tenor, choir and two piano's, I AM HOUDINI, a ballet to sing (l976) I AM HOUDINI, op. 25c (1976) |
|
|
A rather 'vocal' style is also used in a Serenade for strings (1984). SERENA DE, op. 31 (1984)
|
 |
|
|
|
||
