Saturday 26th November, 2011: Dangerous art? (antiphon)





Thursday 18th August, 2011: Buy now! Greedmachine.... (antiphon)
Here is my latest collage: 'Greed machine' [60x46 cm]



(detail↓)















Thursday 4th August, 2011: On the purpose of counterpoint... (responsory)


Polyphony and its method of construction ( counterpoint) is characteristic for western music. Several melodies sounding simultaneously can not be found in the music of any culture other than the western. The phenomenon originates from the 12th century and reached its perfection in the late 16th century with the oeuvre of Palestrina as a classic example. Even today conservatory students are tutored in the tough rules of Renaissance counterpoint.
During my study I endured my counterpoint lessons as tedious, although my results were quite good. It seemed to me that the purpose of counterpoint was to bring about boredom. The severe rules seem to strive for something to sound as bland and dull as possible. I’ll show you an example of ‘perfect’ counterpoint by Palestrina. It will be brief, thus preventing you from falling asleep...

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Palestrina

Palestrina’s contemporary Gesualdo di Venosa had the tendency to experiment in this field, applying a more progressive use of harmony and rhythmical contrasts. But by counterpoint standards he is still considered a maverick.
I can recommend his work to pop musicians for the harmonic swerves in his music they seem to seek but cannot grasp. Probably due to their lack of knowledge of counterpoint.
Here a short example from one of his madrigals from about 1600.

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Gesualdo

150 years later a free and yet masterly output of counterpoint is to be found, of course, in the music of J.S.Bach. In particular his organ works, but also in ‘Das Musikalisches Opfer’ and ‘The art of fugue‘, Bach put the rules of counterpoint to the test.
Listen to this excerpt from one of the many landmarks of polyphonic writing by Bach, the conclusion [stretto] of the triple fugue in E flat BWV 552 for organ.

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Bach

After Bach’s death (1750) counterpoint fell into disuse. With the exception of Beethoven’s late works (the magnificent late quartets in particular, composed while stone-deaf!), western music tended to focus on melody accompanied by functional chords (harmony) instead of polyphony.
It was only in the early 20th century that counterpoint was revived, mainly by the efforts of the second Viennese school composers and their chief Arnold Schönberg.
Here is a example of ‘Interbellum’ counterpoint by Bela Bartok, not a student of any particular school at all, but nevertheless adjusting counterpoint technique to a contemporary (1936) musical vocabulary. (This music is often imitated by film composers for its imaginary and somewhat gloomy qualities.)

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bartok

After the second world war, a group of young composers (Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez in particular) wanted to establish a complete new musical vocabulary, with Schönberg’s serialism as a point of departure. They broke up with all esthetic traditions that were in favour in the society that had led to the disaster of WW II. They dismissed both melody and harmony, advancing a kind of musical ‘pointillism’. And guess what technique they considered most useful to realize this ?
Yes indeed, counterpoint, though of a different kind.
They interpreted the term counterpoint [ punctus contra punctus= note against note] literally. The technique they used I would like to describe as ‘constellational’ counterpoint. Inverting and reversing swarms of pitches, firmly rooted in series of duration, dynamics and articulation.
The first cornerstone of this ‘total serialism’ was the rigorous ’Structures 1a’ for two pianos from 1951 by Pierre Boulez. The applied technique “provided him with a syntax with which he could formulate new musical thoughts”, as he described later.

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Boulez

This might sound a little dry and spasmodic but all beginnings are difficult. Soon composers like Boulez and Stockhausen proved to be in control of the new found language and managed to compose works which are now considered to be masterpieces of that era.
Here an excerpt from Kontra Punkte (1953) by Stockhausen; pay attention to the shrewd use of dynamics and instrumentation which gives this music its breathtaking resilience.

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Stockhausen

It might take some effort for one to release the whole concept of melody and allow oneself to become immersed in these highly organized clouds of sounds.
I found it worth while. It also revealed to me the true value of counterpoint as a tool and method for approaching music of all kinds, instead of a set of rules preventing one from composing something interesting...


(With thanks to Myra Geerling)




Wednesday 27th July, 2011: About grids (trope)


Living in a recently designed part of Amsterdam means one has to come to terms with the acrid outlines of an artificial environment. Even the parched signs of nature seem to have been assembled for some architectural purpose. The whole scenery looks as if planned with a razor blade. It is no wonder that prolonged exposure to these architectonical grids slips into your thinking and working. Nevertheless, I have no problem with this influence since I have an almost obsessive fascination for structure. The grids surrounding me represent both form and transparency. I like my neighbourhood!

One of my recent wall sculptures, 'Polyptychon' [118x51x7 cm], is probably one of the offsprings of this influence. Moreover, it was made from materials found at local waste disposals, which makes it almost a tribute to this area.

Assembling it I left some space between the wall and the sculpture. Often a void can be an additional layer to a work, similar to silences in a piece of music.





















Monday 11th July, 2011: Sonata, ce que je veux de vous. (sequence)
Sonata, what I want from you.

The word Sonata comes from the Italian word sonare and means ‘sounding’. It was used to indicate musical works composed for instruments only, to distinguish them from works composed for voices, which are called Cantata, a word derived from the Italian word cantare.
Over the years, various rules have been established to which the Sonata should apply.
In my recent Pianosonata IV, I returned to the origins of the Sonata as a short ‘instrumental work’.
The sounds I used have been derived from John Cage’s String Quartet in four parts from 1949. The sounds consist of series of Gamuts, gridlike arrays of preset sounds. [image left]

Working with these Gamuts restrained my freedom of composing to a considerable degree and it was closer to cinematic montage than to traditional composing. It was not unlike the cut-up technique used by the Dadaists and, later on, by William Burroughs.
During this assembling of Gamuts I grew bothered by the piano’s sound limitations, which made me decide to change this by electronical means.
With the help of Martin O. and Willem K., I designed a construction to hang guitar pick ups above 14 strings of my grand piano.
The construction had to be adaptable because no two grand pianos are identical on the inside.
The signals received by the guitar pick ups can be synthesized without influencing the grand piano’s percussive and resonance sound qualities.
The pick up signals adapted thus do not produce a sound effect, but a simultaneous composition with the acoustic sonata.
This way, the sound processor is an instant composer during the performance of the Sonata. My special thanks go to my distinguished colleague and friend Martin van den Oetelaar for his patience and support.












With thanks to Marleen H.