related works
The Memory of Roses / Louis Andriessen
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Piano; Piano 4 hands; Violin and keyboard instrument
Scoring:
pf / pf4h / vl pf / vc / ob trb glock / hp / voice pf / sopr fl vc / GK4
Symphonie No. 1 : (1928) / Bertus van Lier
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
4323 4331 timp perc str
Collage no. 6 : voor jazzmusici en orkest, 1966 / Otto Ketting
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
3333 4331 3perc str free-jazz group: sax-a sax-t 1-2cb drums
Muziek voor klein orkest : opus 37, 1948 / Jan Koetsier
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
2222 2200 timp cemb str
composition
Ittrospezione II : per orchestra, Milano 5 marzo 1963 / di Louis Andriessen
Other authors:
Andriessen, Louis
(Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): I wrote Ittrospezione II for large orchestra a number of years ago. It was one of my first 'official' commissions: resulting from the composition prize from the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, I received a commission for an orchestra work from the ministry. I completed it in Milan in the period that I studied with Luciano Berio. Now that I see the piece again I realize that it is full of contrasts. In the first place compositionally: the piece consists of 'block systems' of instrumental groups (therefore also instrumental contrasts) continuously sounding together repetitively and vary or become overlapped by other groups, which often have the same musical material. In a certain way the piece has therefore a static character, hence also the title, including the spelling error - introspection. But within such a block system the mutual parties play with dynamics, often very virtuoso and difficult; the movement takes place to within. Then the contrast in performance: the
musicians play a sustained tone or a group of fast staccato notes, but never a combination of the two; moreover: normal legato playing never occurs in the entire piece. Each individual part is of a solo nature and must also be played this way, which is also a contrast with respect to the apparatus of the symphony orchestra, for which the piece was written. Another contrast is the sound of the piece and the form. It has been organised in the smallest details, whereas consonance frequently has an impulsive character. In this way there a more examples, but the main contrast in the piece is the noise (the work has been built on four Tutti, which stands in perfect proportion to each other) and silence (half way holes open up). All these contrasts are applied rather directly and simple, and that is contrary to the complexity of the musical material. It carries with it the ambitious path of creating an orchestral work that would make all other orchestral works superfluous. Later I have
(perhaps involuntary) seen that contrast between simplicity and complexity works. It is the longest piece I have worked on; from five up to six hours per day, ten months long, in Milan. - LOUIS ANDRIESSEN