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Louis Andriessen


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Ladder of Escape 4: 2 Pianos

Bouwhuis & van Zeeland

Igor Stravinsky - Agon

John Cage - Three Dances...

Louis Andriessen - de Staat

for two pianos.

Attacca Babel 8949-2

I originally bought this for the Stravinsky, a two piano version of Agon, but now I'm getting into de Staat by Louis Andriessen. He always seemed to be a fusion of Stravinsky and pulse oriented minimalism like Steve Reich.

His Wiki seems to think so too:

Andriessen's mature music combines the influences of Stravinsky and American minimalism. His harmonic writing eschews the consonant modality of much minimalism, preferring post war European dissonance, often crystallised into large blocks of sound. Large scale pieces such as
De Staat
[‘Republic’] (1972-76), for example, are influenced by the energy of the big band music of Count Basie and Stan Kenton and the repetitive procedures of Steve Reich, both combined with bright, clashing dissonances. Andriessen's music is thus anti-Germanic and anti-Romantic, and marks a departure from post war European serialism and its offshoots.

I don't know about the big band music reference...I don't hear it. I'm looking forward to checking out more by Andriessen sometime.

I know I've heard his music before...at Bang on a Can, at Princeton U. (I seem to remember he was a visiting composer there a while back).

Hmm...comments anybody?

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I've heard a bit more (though not that much) of his music, and it's pretty diverse. Also not sure re. the big band ref., but then I don't much trust Wiki...

I also like De Staat, which I have on an old Nonesuch CD. Hoketus for percussion (iirc) is loud and fairly similar, but very simple. De Tijd is very different: really static (almost like the way Gann describes the music of John Luther Adams, with whom I'm not familiar) and lush-sounding, but quite beautiful. What sort of turned me off was M is for Man, Music, Mozart, which I found affected and quite lame, although there could be some big band influences iirc (no longer have the CD).

Haven't really pursued Andriessen since, and didn't go into NY some years ago to see his Rosa (?) opera @ Lincoln Center Festival. Wouldn't mind hearing that, but never went so far as to spend $ on the CDs, either.

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De Tijd is very different: really static (almost like the way Gann describes the music of John Luther Adams, with whom I'm not familiar) and lush-sounding, but quite beautiful.
I like this one. I thought it was quite unique. I remember thinking it sounded related to some of the EAI stuff (I would have to revisit "De Tijd" to give a more specific example of Andriessen - EAI connection, though).
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I dug out my copy of the Nonesuch De Staat CD, and the liner notes have the Basie/Kenton allusion. From a 1990 Andriessen interview during the recording session:

"It is written for musicians who are free to choose what they want to play. The Schoenberg Ensemble is made up of such players...In fact, De Staat requires a different approach to playing and a different sort of musician than the standard orchestra offers. For instance, the first non-Dutch performance of De Staat was in Warsaw in 1977, and that was done mostly with standard orchestra musicians. I had to sing every note for them because they articulated the piece like Bruckner and Mahler. And it should be articulated like Count Basie and Stan Kenton!"

Seems to me like the influence may not be clearly evident from the score.

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