11 juni, 1999 - Posthoornkerk, Amsterdam
CONCERT XI
11 juni, 1999 - Posthoornkerk, Amsterdam
CONCERT XI |
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ProgrammaRüdiger Meyer - 'divided west and (equally)' for grand piano and midi piano, 9' Rüdiger Meyer -- piano Samuel Vriezen - 'Six piano pieces in a landscape' (selection to be announced) Samuel Vriezen -- piano Morton Feldman - 'Palais de Mari' for piano, 20' Samuel Vriezen -- piano pauze Cléo Palacio-Quintin - 'Dansar en stjärna av sin blick' for solo flute, 8'30'' Cléo Palacio-Quintin -- flute Cléo Palacio-Quintin, 'Les toits de verdure' for flute and prepared piano, 15' Cléo Palacio-Quintin -- flute Sonsoles Alonso -- piano korte pauze Benedict Weisser, Joshua Penman, Samuel Vriezen, Cléo Palacio-Quintin, Alexander Waterman, Frederike Koch, Andreas Tiedemann, Masako Nugochi, John Ashbery, Richard Strauss, Heiner Mueller, Brian Ferneyhough, Johannes Brahms, John Cage, etc - "60*6, a circus with remix', 60' Benedict Weisser -- Elektra (tape), live electronics Frederike Koch/Masako Noguchi/Andreas Tiedemann -- actors Alexander Waterman -- cello Heiner Mueller -- text Samuel Vriezen -- piano and poetry reading John Ashbery -- poet Brian Ferneyhough -- poet Josh Penman -- Avantgarde DJ Cléo Palacio-Quintin -- flute The bar will remain open during the circus. Program notesRüdiger Meyer - 'divided west and (equally)' "divided west and (equally)" is an exploration of the possibility of travelling through pitch- and time- space either by means of equally distanced steps or by means of proportional divisions, the premiss being that these two types of division represent two essentially different types of hearing. The intervals of the octave, fifth and fourth are each divided into scales of 5, 6 and 7 seven equal steps which along with the tempered chromatic scale provide the 10 equal distance scales that underly thepiece. The rhythmical structure of the piece is a mirror of the pitch grid although transformations are effected by mapping the peed of one scale onto another. The live piano plays a double role of on the one hand taking part in the process of exchanging equal division scales (of the ten available scales the live piano is only capable of playing two - the chromatic and whole tone scales) and on the other interpreting melodies that result from the interaction of the various equal distance scales in terms of proportions. Cléo Palacio-Quintin - 'Dansar en stjärna av sin blick' Originally this piece has been improvised over a poem of Jean-Marc Desgent. This improvisation has been transformed into a composition with a definite form that still includes some free gestures. The music does not try to make a description but rather to reflect the atmosphere of the poem. The last line says: "What I see, remain impassive, what I see, has seen me and dominates me." Ce que je regarde, se dépouille. Ce que je pince entre mes doigts, ce que je prends dans mes bras, sort, soudainement , du champs de la connaissance. Nous sommes au milieu du sens égaré, nos délires ressuscitent les étoiles. Je rends compte de la nudité immé- diate du monde. Par notre sexualité, par notre mélancolie, nous ne savons plus rien avouer. Ce que je vois, reste impassible, ce que je vois, m'a vu et me domine. Jean-Marc Desgent This poem was taken from 'Ce que je suis devant personne' published by Éditions Écrits des Forges, Trois-Rivières, 1994. Cléo Palacio-Quintin - 'Les toits de verdure' (Roofs of greenery) (1999) I. Vert indéfini II. Vert tendre III. Vert innocent IV. Vert obstiné Les toits de verdure is a suite of 4 pieces inspired by pictures of an universitary campus designed by the painter-architect Hundertwasser. The musical form of each movement is constructed after the architectural proportions has we see them on the pictures representing 4 different views of this strange building. As tell the title, this buildings meant to be fused with the landscape. Roofs are made of grass, the walls are curved and the windows all have irregular forms and different colors. Hundertwasser thinks that straight lines should not appear in the human environment because they don't exist in nature. Concert XI Combinatorial Biographical NetworkTaking John Cage as one of his major sources of inspiration, New Yorkite Benedict Weisser is a composer full of original nice ideas and writing some pretty good pieces using them. He knows a lot about a lot of things, including Brian Ferneyhough and music notation which he can do in 65 different languages. He's always very anxious to play Vexations, probably soon in a church near you! Alexander Waterman is a fabulously gifted cellist. Apart from being able to play Brian Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II, he can read in 65 different languages and can turn anything into a score, including your cat. DJ Josh Penman is really too young for his age, or too aged for his youth. Good thing he's turning 20 today. He's into postmodernism and its applications in body chemistry, and unlike Samuel Vriezen, he may actually be a good mathematician some day but like Vriezen, he'll probably end up as another one of your average genius composers. Who needs more of those anyway? Now, Heiner Mueller was Germany's most important playwright, and the only playwright to appear in a Semiotext(e) Foreign Agent Series edition. His seminal and verbally highly strained play 'Hamletmachine' was turned into a very noisy opera by Wolfgang Rihm. If you want to know more about Mueller, ask Andreas Tiedemann, because this actor and director is a real expert on his works, more than I am. Then, somewhat unlike Brian Ferneyhough, John Ashbery is one of America's foremost poets. His works are very subversive, in that they are almost impossible to understand, the real subversion residing in my using the word 'almost' there. Doubling as an art critic, he was as interested in painting as Morton Feldman was; Feldman, however, was into smoking and womanizing and writing incredibly long pieces of music. He doesn't know a thing about Ruediger Meyer, being dead, but Meyer certainly knows a lot about Morton Feldman, perhaps more than Feldman knew himself, having written his doctoral thesis about him. Meyer, born in South-Africa, studied with a lot of teachers, including some German ones, wrote for the Nieuw Ensemble which is rather cool, and now uses his spare time dividing octaves. Strange scales are no secret for flutist Cleo Palacio-Quintin, who is studying Indian classical music concepts at the Sweelinck conservatory in the Raphael Reina course. Other than that, she is an excellent improviser and she will study sonology at the Royal Conservatory next year. By which time Samuel Vriezen really hopes to be out of there, having been there far too long. And unlike Sonsoles Alonso, he's not even a proper pianist, so if you have some really difficult score you'd better ask her. She is in fact quite good, and very active as a modern music pianist, playing Barlow, Bruynel, Stewart and many others. She even wants to read the writings of Brian Ferneyhough, though she hasn't heard his poetry yet so she still might change her mind. The Gregorian repertoire is supposed to have been written by God in the 6th century. Johannes Brahms is well-remembered for writing much loved music and for having a beard which excellently described his musical personality. He was German, unlike highly experimental performance artist Masako Noguchi but like Heiner Mueller, dancer and choreographer Frederike Koch and composer Richard Strauss, who would probably be very interested to hear what Benedict Weisser has been doing to his legacy. On second thoughts, it's probably better that he should have died before the advent of modern digital sound manipulation technology and speaking of matters of life and death, did you know he was born the 11th of June, just like Penman but unlike the latter Strauss won't be around for congratulating and presents and he won't be partying intensively after the concert? Strauss claimed to be able to orchestrate beerglasses but I suppose he couldn't turn scores back into cats again, which opens up whole areas in the philosophy of artistic representation, but unfortunately even though Baudrillard (available in Semiotext(e)!) was in Amsterdam recently, this concert has nothing to do at all with French philosophy. It has much more to do with the spirit of John Cage, the greatest aesthete in music history. Let us pray for his soul! Amen. Dit concert is mogelijk gemaakt zonder enige steun van subsidierende instellingen, wat overigens niet betekent dat jongeren, plattelanders en immigranten niet welkom zouden zijn. Wel zijn we veel dank verschuldigd aan de Posthoornkerk en aan René Nieuwint. Concerten I/IV is een podium voor jonge componisten met als doel het samenbrengen van jonge componisten, jong uitvoerend talent en een fris publiek en het creeeren van een podium waar experimenten met muziek- en concert-vormen mogelijk zijn. Als U op de hoogte wilt blijven van onze inspanningen, neem dan contact op met Samuel Vriezen (020-3640437 of sqv@xs4all.nl). Dit is het laatste concert in de serie. Volgend seizoen zijn we bij U terug met een uitgebreide ensembleprogrammering, waaronder eindelijk een strijkkwartetconcert, het XX ensemble, Daniel Rowland en Bernd Brackman, het Malle Symen blokfluitkwartet en het Insomnio-ensemble, met een nieuwe uitvoering van Satie's Vexations, een improvisatieworkshop en veel meer moois. 'Hamletmachine' is morgen weer te horen om 12 uur op Radio 100. |
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