“Throughout my career, I have been in awe of the symphonic orchestra. After the first symphony in 1989 (original title was simply Orkestwerk), the second in 1997 and the third in 2001, I have composed the fourth symphony. Opus 56, which is actually not that much, but I work slowly.
The symphony is in four movements. That fits in with my constant search for an integration of tradition in my musical thinking. And in that tradition, symphonies were four-part for quite some time. The genre itself was also still undiscussed. Thinking in parts clarifies listening. And it allows you as a composer an exclusive way of dealing with certain intentions and musical ideas. It also limits a musical time-space.
Originally, both corner movements developed the great symphonic ideas, often in sonata and rondo form, or a combination of both. In between there was a moment of introspection and lyricism in the slow movement, and the moment of play and often charming lightness in a minuet or scherzo.
I did not start from this scheme. One of the sources of inspiration for this work was the “Livre pour Orchestre” by Witold Lutoslawski. In it, the famous Polish composer unfolded a quasi-literary form based on four “chapters”. The first three parts are short and to the point, idiosyncratic as well, but hardly develop any great symphonic thoughts. The last chapter, which creeps in almost unobtrusively, directly connected to the preceding part, is then given a new lease of life, and finally gets the big symphonic gesture.
This idea is also present in my fourth symphony. A slow first movement (andante) acts as a grand introduction; the second movement (molto allegro, leggiero) is a scherzo; the third movement (poco andante, tranquillo) is a sober interlude, an intimate moment of waiting; the fourth movement, the finale (andante, agitato), unfolds the final symphonic development, integrating into the narrative the most important musical building blocks of the previous three movements. Immediately, this finale makes the whole thing really comprehensible. The duration of the finale is almost equal to that of the first three movements together. The whole piece lasts just under 37 minutes.
The basis of the whole work is, as always in my recent works, a division of the twelve notes into two complementary groups (or sets, after the set theory which first identified all possible note groups and gave them a ranking based on density and size). Only, in this specific work it concerns two divisions of eight and four notes each. In the finale, they are explicitly and audibly presented twice.”
(Luc Van Hove)
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