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(un)mensch : for symphonic wind orchestra / Rick van Veldhuizen

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Subgenre: Band
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composition

(un)mensch : for symphonic wind orchestra / Rick van Veldhuizen

Publisher's number: 20341
Genre: Orchestra
Subgenre: Band
Scoring: picc 2fl fl-a 2ob eh 2fg cfg 4cl cl-b cl-ca 5sax 2corn 3tpt 4h 2trb-t trb-b euph tb timp 5perc hp pf
Remarks: Won 1st Prize and Audience Award at the 2016 International Composition Competition Harelbeke, Belgium. Premiered on 3 April, 2016 by the Royal Wind Orchestra ‘Vooruit’ Harelbeke conducted by Erik Desimpelaere.
Duration: 19'00"
Year of composition: 2015 (rev. 2020)
Status: fully digitized (real-time delivery)

Other authors:
Veldhuizen, Rick van (Composer)
Description:
(un)mensch is a piece about radicalisation, and the tendency of humans to seek extremes. In current times, as in times past, people have dismissed radical or extreme behaviours as ‘inhuman’ or ‘evil’ behaviour, in the process distancing our humanity from it. This refusal to accept extremes as naturally human leads us astray, ‘Othering’ people we perceive to be different, and losing our concept of a shared humanity.
This piece takes the biggest villain in history, Adolf Hitler, as its starting point. Often considered ‘inhuman’ so one doesn’t have to associate oneself with him, portrayals of this historical figure paradoxically also paint him as a madman, plagued by amphetamine addiction, tinnitus and mental disorder. In short, his evil is often portrayed as both inhuman and quintessentially human.
(un)mensch, in turn, seeks to radicalize existing musical styles and ideas. From Ligeti-like micropolyphonies to Glass’s arpeggios and the unofficial anthem of the Third Reich, everything gets turned into a blurred, topsy-turvy version of itself. At the centre of this is an extensive quote from Richard Wagners Das Rheingold: the emerging and explosion of an idyllic, nationalistic dream, the fair copy of which perished with Hitler in his bunker in 1945.

Rick van Veldhuizen
26 March 2015

Sheet Music
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Product Description Price/piece Count
Score Download to Newzik (A3), 64 pages EUR 37.84
Download as PDF (A3), 64 pages EUR 45.40
Hardcopy, normal size (A3), 64 pages EUR 75.68
Hardcopy, study size (A4), 64 pages EUR 51.12