related works

24 capriccio's voor viool solo

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Violin
Scoring: vl

Capriccio : per violino e cembalo [(o pianoforte)], 1953 / Henri Zagwijn

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Mixed ensemble (2-12 players); Violin and keyboard instrument
Scoring: vl cemb/pf

Puff it Up : for bassoon and string quartet / Chiel Meijering

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Mixed ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring: fg 2vl vla vc

Fauxbourdon : for ensemble, 1991-1992, revision 1993 / Ton de Leeuw

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Mixed ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring: fl cl mar man pf(synth) vl vla

composition

Grab it! : Version for trombone or bassoon or cello & soundtrack with video ad lib. / JacobTV - Jacob Ter Veldhuis

Other authors:
Veldhuis, Jacob ter (Composer)
Description:
Originally composed for tenor sax November 1999 for Arno Bornkamp with financial support from the Dutch Performing Arts Fund. The world premiere took place at a concert called ‘Who’s afraid of…” at Vredenburg in Utrecht, February 2, 2000. After a performance by Arno in July 2000 at the World Sax Congress in Montreal, Grab it! became a repertoire piece and by request arranged for other instruments and combinations.

Growing up in the '60s with blues, jazz, and rock, American music had a profound influence on me. In Grab It!, I sought to explore the 'no-man’s-land' between speech and music. Speech inherently possesses melody and rhythm and I discovered that these qualities often intensify when people become emotional. Grab It! is based on the original speech of life-sentenced prisoners, whose verbal aggression aligns with the harsh sound of the tenor sax. I composed Grab It! as a duet—or a 'battle,' if you will—between the tenor sax and speech grooves, often in unison. The soloist 'competes' with a relentless barrage of syllables, words, and one-liners.

In jail suicide is not uncommon: ‘He tied one end around the pipe, and he hung himself. So he went out the back door rapped up in a green sheet with a tag on his toe…You lose everything!‘ Still Grab it! should also be understood as a ‘memento vivere’. Death row as a metaphor for life: Life is worth living. ‘Grab it!’