Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of music examples and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Dutch music in the twentieth century
- 2 Formative years
- 3 Politics and “concept” works
- 4 Toward the metaphysical in art (1981–88)
- 5 Ramifications
- 6 Operatic collaboration with Peter Greenaway
- 7 Contemplative works
- 8 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Formative years
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of music examples and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Dutch music in the twentieth century
- 2 Formative years
- 3 Politics and “concept” works
- 4 Toward the metaphysical in art (1981–88)
- 5 Ramifications
- 6 Operatic collaboration with Peter Greenaway
- 7 Contemplative works
- 8 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I've decided that Stravinsky's oeuvre accounts for what is current in music for five hundred years already. Stravinsky dominates my way of thinking, either directly or indirectly. He is alive, he makes what is current, and the answer to current affairs [actualiteit]. Something similar guided my thoughts in composing Souvenirs d'Enfance. Graphic piano music, indeterminate piano music, strict twelve-tone music, but also light music, romantic music (from French B-films, James Bond) make up all the parts of what is current in music today.
(Andriessen 1968: 179)This piece [Contra Tempus], as well as this article, is a response to the downward spiraling development in the conception of musical style and the de-humanizing effect it has had on composers. The musical quotation of other composers should be taken up in the first place as an engagement, an identification, a recognition of oneself in something else. Charles Ives comments: “I don't quote, I just recognize myself.”… We can work in harmony with living as well as dead composers.
(Andriessen 1968: 178)The new directions in which contemporary music evolved after World War II had a determining influence upon the generation of composers who were coming of age in the late 1950s. The serial “fervor” that caught hold in Europe and North America exerted an inescapable force on composers working in the Netherlands who, until then, were divided between French and German compositional lineages.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Music of Louis Andriessen , pp. 29 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007