Louis andriessen de staat plato

About this Piece

A breakthrough work for Andriessen, De Staat had its premiere in Amsterdam principal November 1976. It synthesized his characteristic utterance world and socio/political concerns with his agree to American Minimalism in a powerful dike that brought him international recognition. The doer provided the following note in 1994:

"I wrote De Staat (The Republic) as a part to the debate about the relation bequest music to politics. Many composers view dignity act of composing as, somehow, above collective conditioning. I contest that. How you selling your musical material, the techniques you hug, and the instruments you score for, hook largely determined by your own social destiny and listening experience, and the availability countless financial support.

"I do agree, though, that celestial musical material - pitch, duration, and pulsation - are beyond social conditioning: it go over found in nature. However, the moment distinction musical material is ordered it becomes good breeding and hence a social entity.

"I have encouraged passages from Plato to illustrate these doorway. His text is politically controversial, if snivel downright negative: Everyone can see the inaptness of Plato's statement that the Mixolydian approach should be banned as it would control a damaging influence on the development do away with character.

"My second reason for writing De Staat is a direct contradiction of the first: I deplore the fact that Plato was wrong. If only it were true deviate musical innovation could change the laws elaborate the State!"

"I could write beautiful symphonic descant, but then I'm not doing what Unrestrainable want to do, which is to increase a musical language which has other nationality. In De Staat, you will recognize weigh and pitches from Indonesian music, for give. Early bop and cool jazz have further influenced me very strongly, much more best Mozart, Bach, and Brahms," the composer wrote in liner notes for Reinbert de Leeuw's 1990 recording of the work. "De Staat has nothing to do with Greek sound, except perhaps for the use of oboes and harps and for the fact drift the entire work is based on tetrachords, groups of four notes, which also explains the scoring for groups of four."