related works
String quartet II : (1964) / Ton de Leeuw
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
String quartet (2 violins, viola, cello)
Scoring:
2vl vla vc
Herschepping : voor kamerkoor en harp / Gerard Beljon; tekst van Gerrit Achterberg
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and instruments
Scoring:
sopr alt ten bas hp
Les Dents du Midi (Poème Lyrique) : for ensemble / Kerry Woodward; text Theo Monkhorst
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and instruments
Scoring:
zang GK fl/picc/fl-a ob/eh cl-cl-b vn vla vc pf
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and instruments
Scoring:
GK4 str perc
composition
Lamento pacis I : for choir and instruments / Ton de Leeuw; text by Erasmus
Other authors:
Erasmus, Desiderius
(Text writer/Librettist)
Leeuw, Ton de
(Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): (Première: June 14, 1969 - NCRV Vocal Ensemble and Percussion Group Amsterdam, Marinus Voorberg, conducting - Holland Festival) -
Erasmus completed Querela Pacis in 1517. This complaint of peace provides us with a striking view of the restless political situation in those years. It contains a large number of protests against nearly all the leading persons and institutions from political, social and religious life, and culminates in a call for true peace, which in its failure is just as pathetic as corresponding pleas from our time. Nothing than the works in Erasmus' oeuvre can better function as a bridge to our own time. This text was the foundation of a composition for a 16 voiced choir and eight instrumentalists. Only some selected fragments were used from the original text. I was more concerned about the moral aspects of the contents and the direct understanding of it. . This comprehension is nearly excluded because the choir sings the original Latin version, and by the complex manner of textual treatment. The composition has three movements, which greatly differ in character from each other (they can be also
be performed separately). The first movement characterises itself by large, monolithic block-systems, which are opposite to each other. For that purpose the performers are separated into two spatial groups. These passages are interrupted by smaller, more transparent fragments, which have an entirely different character, among others due to the multiple use of microtones. Microtones are in our time what chromaticism was in the time of Gesualdo da Venosa. For this reason this movement is a homage to this Italian master. - TON DE LEEUW