‘mais le corps taché d’ombres’ is a tense, writhing work in which strands of melody, at first isolated and drifting, navigate an increasingly complex harmonic web to connect with each other. Sometimes they are obscured by the overlaying tissue, sometimes penetrating it to come up to the surface. The fragmented tunes chase each others’ tail until they finally are given their head on joining together and conjuring up a pair of ecstatic climaxes.
This piece’s tonality deals in extreme contrasts between hyper-consonance (13-limit just intonation) and hyper-dissonance (critical-band intervals) which lend to it a sometimes nerve-jangling, sometimes almost overly rich sonority. The melodies conjure up not only Mahler’s swooping strings and the extremely tight-knit counterpoint found in Berg and Ligeti, but also the great Disco diva’s of the 70’s, like Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer.
The title comes from Jean Genet’s poem Le condamné à mort, in which he describes darkly lit taverns where he would meet men, unbuckling them, while hardly being able to see their faces, their bodies ‘overwhelming as the universe, but stained by shadows’. The piece can follow 2020’s unde imber ignes as a companion piece. This piece’s opening chord is the latter’s ending chord, and both pieces exchange some musical and thematic DNA throughout.
Interview with Vrouwkje Tuinman in Preludium:
Initially, the idea was to write a slow piece for strings, which might come full circle with the final movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. And I was certainly inspired by that symphony, and by the Tenth. The melody lines that rise, the ideas without a clear beginning and end… In the end, I added a harp, just like in Mahler’s famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony. Everything is better with a harp. Certainly a string orchestra: like no other, this instrument can break through the string texture, provide attack, stimulation and direction.
mais le corps taché d’ombres (but the body, stained with shadows), a phrase by writer Jean Genet, for me is about stimuli and impressions. Friction, too. Together with the harp, the orchestra forms a kind of nerve system, which continually branches out and then links up again. For me, string instruments have a clear association with the nerve system. Physical, but also spiritual. Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is often called a farewell to life, an elegy to one’s own physical existence. In my piece, I am also concerned with the body. The experience of fear, love, ecstasy, and its reflection in notes. Close to the listener – it may be a bit uncomfortable.
In Mahler’s work, I am fascinated by the way in which he seems to express emotions that are almost too intimate. This sometimes leads to very capricious forms and structures, to great contrasts between light and dark. His work is extremely human. Moreover, the nice thing is that he was not blind to popular sounds, to the music that was being consumed around him at the time. He quietly incorporated a Ländlertje. I myself am open to many genres. There are disco strings in this work, like Gloria Gaynor. It is precisely the inclusion of a wide variety of influences that makes the final composition really flow from me.
I am very much looking forward to the moment when mais le corps taché d’ombres is performed. Then a very nice role reversal takes place: the music becomes the musicians’ and I almost end up in a passive role. That process, that tension, is very nice. It’s also magical: the human energy that materialises a score’.
Starting in 2008, he studied composition and piano at the Fontys Conservatorium’s Young Musicians’ Academy with Kees Schoonenbeek and Jelena Bazova, respectively. After that, he went on to study at the Royal Conservatoire with Martijn Padding and Calliope Tsoupaki, followed by a Bachelor’s degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, studying with Joël Bons and Willem Jeths, which he obtained in 2016 with a cum laude mention. He started a master’s degree in Berlin, but the aesthetic environment turned out to be squarely incompatible. He now resides in the Netherlands again.
Rick van Veldhuizen at Donemus
mais le corps taché d’ombres at the Donemus catalogue
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