related works
24 capriccio's voor viool solo
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Violin
Scoring:
vl
Onderweg : voor orkest, (1973) / Misha Mengelberg
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
2223 2220 4perc str (moulinette musicale ad lib.)
Symfonie no. 2 : 1932 / Henk Badings
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
3333 4331 timp perc str
Canto continuo : voor symfonieorkest, 1988 / Henk Keizer
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
3221 4430 2timp 2perc str
composition
Toonen : voor kamerorkest, 1980 / Guus Janssen
Author(s):
Janssen, Guus
(Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): [Première: 19 oktober 1980 - Radio Kamerorkest under the direction of Ernest Bour (Donaueschingen)] - The work consists of three movements followed by a coda. In the first movement a monodic piece of music is developed into polyphony consisting exclusively of the very fast canonical treatment of the four basic motifs, which is not really polyphony. The second movement includes the repetition of the introduction at a too low and a too high speed. The four chords underlying the basic motifs also filter through now and then, but their first really clear appearance, in strings and glockenspiel, has to wait until just before the coda. In the third movement a homophonic pattern is first developed (from a pulsating fugure, by continuous shifts), followed by polyphony (merely rhythmic since at the same moment the melodic movement has stopped) caused by the rhythmic pattern running off the rails. So again there is no complete polyphony. Real polyphony comes into existence right before
the coda by a superposition of the introduction and its too fast and too slow versions. The coda is announced, being truly polyphonic but at the same time being a major musical derailment: the four "tonalities" dissolve, the four basic motifs lose their identity by merging into longer ascending and - mainly - descending lines (which didn't figure earlier in the work). The pulses (important in the third) also melt together beyond recognition and the music as a whole gets stuck as there are too many scratches in it. - GUUS JANSSEN