composer
Jakob Klaasse was born on October 31, 1948 in Uitgeest, The Netherlands. He studied Piano and Composition with Ton de Leeuw at the Amsterdam Conservatorium (1968-1972). As a composer, pianist, ...
related works
The Periodic Table : for orchestra / Jakob Klaasse
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
picc fl fl-a ob eh 2cl cl-b fg 2h 4tpt 2trb trb-b tb timp perc hp pf cel str
Organum : voor klein orkest, 1982 / Henk Keizer
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
1010 2sax-a 0010 (or other wind instr) 2perc pf str
Stellar spheres : 2006 / Peter van Onna
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
4444 4431 timp 3perc pf hp str
Coup de Couperin : fantasie voor amateur-symfonieorkest, 1985 / Nico Hermans
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
3222 4330 timp 4perc hp str
composition
The Periodic Table : for orchestra / Jakob Klaasse
Description:
In 1944 Italian-Jewish chemist Primo Levi (1919-1987) is sent to Auschwitz and is imprisoned there for 14 months. Thanks to a combination of luck, perseverance and superhuman effort he survives, one of five, out of 650 people transported with him. He spent the remainder of his life bearing witness to the war and writing about his experiences. Books like ‘If This Is a Man’, ‘The Truce’ and ‘If Not Now, when?’.
In ‘The Periodic Table’, Levi connects events in his life to chemical elements. The 21 chapters of the book, autobiographical anecdotes, are based on his ancestry, his studies, his work, his arrest, interrogation and imprisonment in Auschwitz, and each is linked to, and named after a chemical element.
The book inspired me to write 21 short pieces for orchestra. ‘The Periodic Table’ is dedicated to my father, who suffered a similar fate and, like Primo Levi, spent the rest of his life looking for a way to find meaning in what happened to him during WWII and how to deal with it.
Jakob Klaasse, 2019