November Music’s good tradition of opening the festival programme with a newly composed ‘Bosch Requiem’ since 2017 has resulted in many interesting premieres in recent years that have linked the texts of the age-old Gregorian chants with the music of contemporary Dutch composers. This year, it was up to Joey Roukens (1982) to present his Requiem in Amsterdam, Den Bosch and Enschede.
The Requiem, in its original ecclesiastical application as a mass for the dead or as a concert work, hardly lends itself to an abstract composition; the Gregorian texts are too full of imagery and Christian symbolism for that. In his Requiem, Roukens manages to find the balance and coherence between the intensity of the message and its musical rendering. It has become a highly varied work for choir and string orchestra in which both vocal and instrumental input and meaning are equal.
In thirteen short movements, very different in character and scoring, the composer does not try to give the best possible musical ‘translation’ of the text, but also to treat the words themselves as sound. The texts are infused with music, as it were. Gently swaying motifs evoke comfort and resignation, while dissonant frictions recall pain and farewell. There are many moving moments, full of special lightness, gentleness and beautiful harmonies.
The light and harmonious Introitus “Requiem aeternam”, the rousing and full of powerful explosions of sound “Dies irae”, the surprisingly dark “Lacrimosa” or the polyphonic “In Paradisum “and the transparent in sound “Qui tollis peccata mundi” from the “Agnus Dei” – these are all gripping choral works with strong contrasts in timbre and many contradictions in euphony and dissonance. The choruses often have unexpected turns as in the Offertorium, where syllables of “libera” are suddenly thrown out like drum rolls. The Nederlands Kamerkoor sings breathtakingly beautifully and is also given plenty of space by the composer to explore the heights and depths.
Members of the Nederlands Kamerkoor and Amsterdam Sinfonietta and conductor Sofi Jeannin Photo: © Marieke Wijntjes
Amsterdam Sinfonietta conducted by Sofi Jeannin also plays excellently, with great inspiration and boundless energy. Instrumental movements in this Requiem are rarely meditative and soothing; here, instead, the release comes with lots of chromaticism and dissonant harmonies, as in the energizing Praeludium. Effective is the use of glissandi, undulating sounds of marimba, a fragile thin and unsettling violin sound and drum rolls.
What is special is the way Roukens gives the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson, Clare Harner and Mark Twain a place in the Requiem as three Interludiums. They approach death and dying differently from the requiem texts: death here is a liberation from “vanitas mundi” and the grave “under the wide and starry sky” is the place where one “longed to be”. As a result, the imagery is also much more romantic, lighter and even joyful. “Joyful living” leads to “joyful” dying, and wishing for a “blissful rest” is replaced by “Good night, dear heart, good night, good night”. Again, the poetic lyrics and music are strongly linked.
Joey Roukens’ Bosch Requiem overwhelms, amazes, and moves. This composer’s stylistic versatility leads to the often surprising use of melodic and harmonic construction and attention to all aspects of the musical progression, from metre and rhythm, dynamics and texture to instrumentation and choice of vocal groups for particular texts. In the Requiem, all these elements form a steadfast, strong and impressive musical whole that derives its meaning from the content and in turn enhances it.
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