composer

Veldhuis, Jacob ter

Dutch ‘avant pop’ composer JacobTV started as a rock musician and studied composition and electronic music; he won the Composition Prize of the Netherlands in 1980. He became a full ...

related works

24 capriccio's voor viool solo

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Violin
Instruments: vl

Mourning songs : 7 songs about death for mezzo-soprano and small ensemble, 1998 / on Ancient Greek texts, translated by Konstantinos Lardas, Joep Straesser

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Instruments: sopr-m fl(pic) cl vla vc pf

Réflexions I : (1958-1959), pièce contenant un va-et vient de songes iréels, comme un bouquet de fleurs arrangées intuitivement, allant du rêve à la réalité / Daniël Ruyneman

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Instruments: sopr fl perc xyl vibr g vla

Melos hidiston : for voice, tenor recorder, viola, cello, double bass and piano, 1991 / Calliope Tsoupaki

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Instruments: sopr rec-t pf vla vc cb

composition

Insonnia : opus 34, for soprano, accordion, bass clarinet and percussion, 1986 / Jacob ter Veldhuis

Other authors:
Quasimodo, Salvatore (librettist)
Description:
Program note (English): I wrote Insonnia in December 1986 by request of a new ensemble with the enigmatic name of DC+M2. For this composition my only points of departure were the penetrating words of Salvatore Quasimodo and the bizarre instrumentation of DC+M2: mezzo-soprano, accordion, bass clarinet and percussion (marimba, vibraphone, cymbals, timpani and electronic bass drum). This combination creates an extremely varied sound-color spectrum held together by the accordion part. The music lies at the edge of tonality, and the score closely interprets the poem, which makes Insonnia quite intelligible. It ends with a sudden coda distinguished by its hammering rhythmic pattern, in which short quotations from the poem keep reminding the listener of the song of the eternal night. - JACOB TER VELDHUIS