Compositional Technique as a Tool of Political Statement in the Works of Louis Andriessen

Relevance of the study. The work of Louis Andriessen, a Dutch composer, is regarded as a significant contribution to the formation of music culture of the second half of the 20th century. Despite his influence, however, there are practically no research papers in domestic musicology that would analyze Andriessen’s work and personality or his professional musical and political activities. One of the main research topics related to Andriessen’s work is the influence of politics on music. The topic itself is quite particular and somewhat controversial because it always leaves a lot of questions that need further clarification, may require a different perspective and a new approach. One of such questions with a controversial view is a discussion of how compositional techniques can be influenced by and formed based upon the composer’s political views. Main objective of the study. Taking into consideration Louis Andriessen’s own experiences, analyze how his compositional techniques created political content of his works, and particularly the writing of the cantata “De Staat” (“The Republic”) by Plato. Methods. The following were used in the research analysis: biographical (in the analyses of the style and work of the composer); historical (in the analyses of the cultural and socio-political context); comparative (in the analyses of the political and aesthetic views and standpoints of artists); analytical (in the analyses of the musical works). Results/findings and conclusions. There were several reasons that led Louis Andriessen to appeal to minimalism. The main reason was the composer’s desire to respond to his fellow composers that themselves were searching for their own applicable techniques and style to disseminate political ideas. Minimalism was particularly attractive to the composer because it was relevant, easily accessible to the general public, and reflective. At the same time, it was politically appropriate and democratic. The musical and political activism of Andriessen was aimed at creating a new type of communication and relationships between a composer and a performer, a performer and audience, and ultimately at creating a new musical community. This new type of communication and community is reflected in the composer’s work “The Republic”. For performers in particular, “The Republic” became a practical exercise similar to the style of Lehrstück B. Brecht, which allowed performers to adapt to new musical interactions proposed by the composer. Andriessen was able to achieve this goal by using hocket techniques — i. e., by removing the role inequality among performers and emphasizing the expressive importance of each performer in a musical composition. However, Andriessen’s compositional techniques used in “The Republic” to reflect his political views did not support, but rather emphasized the composer’s contradictory political position and in particular his binary position to Plato’s views on the place of music in politics. Nevertheless, it was “The Republic” that started the creation of a unique performance and approach in musical composition called “Andriessen’s approach”, which would successfully combine minimalism with traditional European compositional techniques, modern and experimental techniques, and components of music at large. At the very end, the unique combination of the aforementioned compositional techniques is what identifies the specificity of the content of Andriessen’s music. Significance of these results consists in the point of view on the question of how a compositional technique forms political content in the music written by Louis Andriessen

Liveness and Mediatization

Chapter 3 approaches liveness as an effect of immediacy. It analyzes how hypermedial opera constructs an opposition between live performance and that which is “mediatized,” that is, generated or reproduced by media technology. Relying, among others, on film sound theory, the chapter shows how the effect of liveness becomes a function of a particular relationship between sound and its source, and especially voice and body. Where some scholars have played up the discrepancy between the voice heard and the body seen in opera, this chapter is attentive to how an apparent unity of voice and body is maintained within the context of hypermediacy. With the help of Louis Andriessen and Peter Greenaway’s opera Writing to Vermeer, the chapter suggests that an alignment of liveness with femininity and body-voice unity subverts some of the critical claims that have been made with respect to both live performance and the embodied singing voice.

Introduction

The chapter-length introduction situates the book’s subject matter within a broad interdisciplinary field, and specifically in relation to the theory of intermediality in theatre and performance, the burgeoning audiovisual studies, and the “material turn” in opera scholarship. Approaching opera as hypermedium draws attention to the continuity between operatic past and present, and between different media and art forms, old and new. Productions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle by Robert Lepage and La Fura dels Baus serve here as a starting point for consideration of opera’s inherently hypermedial aspects. Pieces by Philip Glass, Michel van der Aa, and others help contextualize the book’s central case studies, the operas by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and British filmmaker Peter Greenaway, which epitomize the ways these aspects are rethought today. To outline the book’s theoretical framework, the introduction revisits some classic nodes in the debates about presence and representation and about liveness and mediatization.

Opera as Hypermedium

This book deals with contemporary relationships between opera and the media. It is concerned with both the use of media on stage and opera on screen. Drawing on the concept of hypermediacy from media studies, it situates opera within the larger context of contemporary media practices, and particularly those that play up the multiplicity, awareness, and enjoyment of media. The discussion is driven by the underlying question of what politics of representation and perception opera performs within this context. This entails approaching operas as audiovisual events (rather than works or texts) and paying attention to what they do by visual means, along with the operatic music and singing. The book concentrates on events that foreground their use of media and technology, drawing attention to opera’s inherently hypermedial aspects. It works with the recognition that such events nevertheless engender powerful effects of immediacy, which are not contingent on illusionism or the seeming transparency of the medium. It analyzes how effects like presence, liveness, and immersion are produced, contesting some critical claims attached to them. It also sheds light on how these effects, often perceived as visceral or material in nature, are related to the production of meaning in opera. The discussion pertains to contemporary pieces such as Louis Andriessen and Peter Greenaway’s Rosa and Writing to Vermeer, as well as productions of the canonical repertory such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle by Robert Lepage at the Met and La Fura dels Baus in Valencia.

MISSY MAZZOLI (b. 1980)As Long As We Live (2013)

This chapter describes American composer Missy Mazzoli’s As Long As We Live (2013). Showing the influence of figures such as the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen as well as some of those involved in the worldwide Bang-on-a-Can movement, this work, which is also available in a version for baritone, could just as easily fit a club setting or popular concert as a more formal recital venue. In order to alleviate balance problems, the singer could be amplified if need be. It is even possible that singer and pianist could be the same person, a situation more frequently found in ‘pop’ concerts. The straightforward appeal and seductively euphonious harmonies of this extended song conceal considerable artistic acumen and an acute ear for subtleties of timbre. Both the simplicity of the vocal line and the characteristically repetitive nature of the piano writing are deceptive. A classically trained singer with a well-centred purity of tone and a firm middle register is surely essential to achieve the pinpoint tuning of intervals, many of which are quite close and clash with the piano’s triadic harmonies.

Louis Andriessen La Commedia, Barbican Hall, London

In what would become known as the Notenkrakersactie, a group of composers, Louis Andriessen amongst them, famously disrupted a Concertgebouw Orchestra concert in 1969, protesting its Establishment politics and unwillingness to engage with the younger generation of Dutch firebrands. Nearly half a century later, Andriessen is a recipient not only of commissions from said orchestra but also of what is arguably the most prestigious (and certainly the most lucrative) composition prize in the world, the Grawemeyer Award. There is no great irony here, of course – music history is littered with examples of iconoclasts whose originality disoriented contemporary opinion, not to mention angry young men whose radicalism mellowed with age – but the case of Andriessen is certainly striking.