composer
From the start, Jan Vriend has been a musical omnivore who combines a strongly modernistic approach with openness to the interests of and needs for a good musical education. ...
related works
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Other combinations of strings and keyboard instrument
Scoring:
pf vl vla vc cb
Requiem : voor gemengd koor en orkest / Cornelis Dopper
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and orchestra
Scoring:
GK4 2fl 2ob 2cl 2fg 4h 2trp 3trb tb timp perc str
A kind of existence : for chorus and orchestra, (1974) / text: Ben Sies, Mathieu Geelen
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and orchestra
Scoring:
GK4 3323 4331 timp perc str
Laudi : a symphony for mezzo-soprano, baritone, two mixed choirs and orchestra / Tristan Keuris
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and orchestra
Scoring:
sopr-m bar 2GK4 4443 sax-a 4331 timp 3perc hp pf(cel) str
composition
La Guerra : for mezzo-soprano and baritone, mixed choir and symphony orchestra / Jan Vriend
Description:
La Guerra combines 5 different poems in 4 different European languages. As it is designed to commemorate the centenary of Armistice Day in 2018 – the day after my 80th birthday – and with BREXIT looming, I was determined to give it an uncompromising European slant, up to and including a reference to the European International Hymn, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
"La Guerra", by the contemporary Spanish poet Antonia Álvarez Álvarez, is the central text of the work and holds the composition together. It laments the misery of (any) war in a short litany of woes that characterise its inhumanity, futile suffering and ignominious degradation of life. The other poems, interspersed between the verses of La Guerra, were chosen to highlight other aspects of life or relate to war and peace in other ways.
"Violeta", also by Antonia Álvarez Álvarez, contemplates the beauty of a single violet; in all its simplicity the sort of thing wars trample on regardless. "Hinter Bäumen", by the German (Jewish) poet Elsa Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945) and written during the First World War, expresses an outpouring of love, its rejection and consequent sense of hopelessness. "Strange Meeting" (extract), by Wilfred Owen who, with Siegfried Sassoon, is probably the best-known war poet of all and served in the First World War, talks about a dream in which he meets an enemy soldier whom he recognises as a fellow human being he killed, drawn into the same madness as he himself. I only used the first ten and the concluding five lines of the poem, leaving out the long middle section. "La Paix", by Lauer Christine, a pupil at the Lycée de Garçons in Luxemburg, may have been written as an entry in a competition. It is a very simple but straightforward statement about peace in Europe and the price paid for it.
La Guerra can be preceded by my overture Tombeau des Vies Manquées, written in 2015 to commemorate Armistice Day and lasting 6 minutes.
Jan Vriend