related works

Five close-ups : (based on a twelve ton [sic] row by Pierre Boulez), for piano, 1960/61, revised: December 1973 / Joep Straesser

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Piano
Scoring: pf

Let's Not Soil the Water (Aab raa gel nakonym) : for soprano and harpsichord / Reza Nakisa; on lyrics by Sohrab Sepehry

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring: sopr cemb

De jeuk is erger dan de pijn : for 3 accordions, bass accordion and mezzo soprano, 1994 / text: E. du Perron (1899-1940), Dolf Rantzig (1947-1986), Chiel Meijering

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring: sopr-m 3acc acc-b

The hunting gun : for 1 or 3 singers and small ensemble, 2000 / text from the novel 'The hunting gun' by Yasushi Inoue, Calliope Tsoupaki

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s); Vocal ensemble (2-12) and instrument(s)
Scoring: sopr/3sopr cl(bh) pf vl(vla) vc

composition

Nimm Dir etwas Schönes : 7 Lieder auf alt-[Ä]gyptische Texte, für Sopran, Klarinette (B), Geige und Klavier, 1979 / Joep Straesser

Other authors:
Straesser, Joep (Composer)
Contains:
An die Morgensonne
Vom Fluss
Die Macht der Liebe
Im Tempelkult
Die Klage von Merit-Re
Das Haus vom Westland
An die Nacht
Description:
Program note (English): "Nimm dir etwas Schönes" consists of seven settings of ancient Egyptian texts in German translation.
The first song is about sunrise, the second about young love, the third about mature love, the fourth about dancing and drunkenness, the fifth is a woman's lament at her husbands bier, the sixth is about the fate of the dead and the seventh about the night. A striking feature is that most of the subjects are seen from a woman's point of view and therefore the songs should not be performed by a tenor. While composing these songs I bore two points in mind: 1. The texts are so meaningful and with such poetical and expressive strength that it was important they should remain audible. This excluded a modern approach to setting words to music, which concentrates on the phonetic aspect of the text and treats it as musical sound while audibility is of minor importance. Therefore the voice had to be treated in a relatively traditional manner. 2. No matter how different the texts and their settings should be, strong and clearly audible links between the songs should exist regarding the used
material. This starting point resulted in a prominent use of major and minor seconds and so the song cycle can be regarded as a set of variations.

The audibility of the words made it necessary to use a rather traditional technique of composition. Choosing certain intervals as building blocks for the whole work is a mode of composing that was employed by a.o. Debussy, Webern and the serial composers of the 'fifties and sixties' and still current. Historically both starting points form a certain contradiction. A tension between tradition and modern techniques arise and particularly in this area of tension I at present make my compositions. - JOEP STRAESSER