composer
Jan van Vlijmen writes chamber music, operas, songs and orchestral works. His compositions are strongly influenced by the serial music of Arnold Schoenberg. He is also attracted to the sumptuous ...
related works
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Large ensemble (12 or more players)
Instruments:
fl-a eh cl-b fg trp trb g hp man vl 2vla vc cb
Marionetten : voor 13 blazers, (1972) / Kees Olthuis
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Wind ensemble (9 or more players)
Instruments:
2222 3200
Echo : for wind ensemble and percussion, 1994 / Jan Rokus van Roosendael
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Wind ensemble (9 or more players)
Instruments:
4264 2sax-a 4440 4perc
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Wind ensemble (9 or more players)
Instruments:
1000 3sax 1331 pf
composition
Per diciassette / Jan van Vlijmen
Description:
Program note (English): This work was composed at the request of the Amsterdam Municipality and is scored exclusively for wind instruments: 3 flutes, 1 oboe, 1 oboe d'amore, 1 English horn, 1 clarinet, 1 bass clarinet, 1 tenor saxophone, 4 horns, 3 bassoons and 1 double bassoon.
The 3 flutes should be placed at the back of the hall to counterbalance the 4 horns and 3 bassoons on the stage. The other instruments should be distributed around the public. This manner of grouping the various instruments implies a certain contradiction: the block-shaped group on the stage and the 3 flutes at the back of the hall, as well as the varied positions of the other instruments are of course connected with what is happening in the piece. A kind of polyphonic music is opposed to a monolithic block. A differentiation can be heard towards monolithic sound blocks, characterized by, among other things, mono rhythm.
In fact this development determines the work. In the structure an ambivalence can be felt, because there is a desire for consolidation, demonstrated by the transition from independence towards the forming of blocks, but at the same time there is a certain breakdown, the work goes 'to pieces'. This contradiction was evoked to create a tension.
Roughly the work can be divided in 5 parts. The first part is determined by the 'twittering' of six instruments surrounding the public, hampering the block-shaped groups on the stage by their individual interjections. In the second part the block-shaped groups break loose from the six 'twitterers'. From a musical point of view this part connects the first and third parts. The latter builds a kind of integration between the group on the stage and the groups in the hall. In the fourth part the flutes have about the same function as the horns in the second part: in both movements the blocks are explicitly present.
The integration of all instruments, occurring in the fifth and final movement, is not a climax. The limitations of the sound material, characterized by the word 'breakdown', take away any feeling of crowning. - JAN VAN VLIJMEN