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Composed for the Ensemble LOOS with financial support by:
Fund for the Creation of Music, Prins Bernhard Fonds
Recorded by Geijsen Muziekproducties on December 12-15,
1995, @ the ´Korzo Theatre´, The Hague (Netherlands)
Artistic supervision recording: Cornelis de Bondt
Photography: Michiel Voet et al.
Design: Samenwerkende Ontwerpers bv
Production : Donemus, 1996, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Liner Notes: Frits van der Waa / Donemus
Booklet: dutch/english
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Ensemble LOOS
(…) The music of LOOS cannot be defined in terms of a
single category or genre. (…)
LOOS places itself in the no man´s land between composition
and improvisation. These two elements influence each other
continuously, creating a tension both among the musicians
and between the musicians and the public. What the audience
in fact witnesses at each concert, is the genesis of a composition,
from within the given structures of the composed units. The
compositions are based on the musicians´ individual
contributions which, however, spring from common roots and
preferences. Their individuality guarantees the continuous
flux of polyphonic music they envisage. Their common experience
ensures it works.
The specific tension of composition versus improvisation
is also apparent in the background of the musicians who
make up LOOS. Founder Peter van Bergen is primarily involved
in contemporary and improvised music, while Gerard Bouwhuis,
Huib Emmer, Paul Koek and Patricio Wang are mainly concerned
with 20th century composed music. Yet they all share a fascination
for precisely that indefinable area where the musician seeks
on the one hand to be free of the constraints of composed
structures, while on the other he probes for a structural
framework for (free) improvisation. The result is an extremely
vital, spiky music, which leaves nobody unaffected. (…)
As the title suggests, ´De Tragische Handeling´
has the character of a ritual or, more specifically, of
a requiem. The title is taken from Bach´s Cantata
No. 106, the ´actus tragicus´, Gottes Zeit ist
die allerbeste Zeit. In Bach too it is funeral music. One
component of de Bondt´s composition - the notes of
the sampled boy soprano - comes directly from this cantata,
from the passage where, above the three lower voices (with
the text: "Es ist der alte Bund: Mensch, Du mußt
sterben") a joyous soprano part continuously sings:
"Ja, ja, komm, Herr Jesu, komm", and finally,
when the wheels stop turning, dissolves in a solitary liberating
melisma - as of the soul leaving the body.
This final melisma also forms the conclusion to ´De
Tragische Handeling´.
The work is, according to the composer, wholly based on
series of the type 1 / 1-2-1 /1-2-3-2-1 / 1-2-3-4-3-2-1-
etc. where it is understood that the ´curve´
of this series can also be projected on itself: 1 / 1-2-1
/ 1 / 1-2-1 / 1 / 1-2-31 / 1-2-1 / 1 / 1-2-1 / 1-2-3-2-1
/ 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 / 1-2-3-2-1- etc.Virtually all parameters
of the work are set by means of these series (or rather:
networks of series). (…)
The piece is tailor-made for the members of LOOS. (…)
At the première of ´De Tragische Handeling´
de Bondt made a brief statement: "That which applies
to most of my works, applies to (…) ´De Tragische
Handeling´ in great measure. It was not written to
please, seduce, or (…) amuse the listener (…)
even less to imitate or describe nature. It is not a direct
expression (or report) of my emotions, because I don´t
need music for that. But it is true that emotions play an
important role in the production of a work. (…) Nature
gives life and takes life away; man sets an action beside
it. Nothing more, nothing less. (…) Art is then no
longer about that one death or about this one lover, but
about Life and about Death." (…)
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