Ton de Leeuw - Danses sacrées for piano and chamber ensemble (3/3)

Ton de Leeuw (1926-1996)

Danses sacrées pour piano et orchestre de chambre (1989-90)

David Kuyken, piano and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ed Spanjaard

Already in the very first bars of Danses sacrées, Ton de Leeuw, leaving no room for doubt, emphatically distances himself from the subjective expressiveness of the romantic piano concerto. Not merely chronologically, but, even more importantly, easthetically, this music is the furthest removed from the ideals of the past century. At hand in de Leeuw's music is not a dialogue between the soloist and orchestra, or the progressive building to a climax; the sound of the modern concert piano in "Danses sacrées" is, without bombast, a complete entity in itself. In its ensemble playing with the percussion, entirely new sounds arise that allude to Indonesian gamelan music. Traces of the post-war developments of European music are heard in the gossamer sounds of the strings. The treatment of the winds conjures images of Stravinsky. But de Leeuw goes much further. Making use of the new stylistic means at his disposal, and his knowledge of foreign cultures, he sets out on a quest for the common musical elements of all peoples, the universal distinguishing characteristics of all music, and with the super-personal ritual here taking the place of the struggle between the individual (soloist) and orchestra.

Ton de Leeuw (born Rotterdam, 16 November 1926; died Paris, 31 May 1996) was a Dutch composer. He was known for his experiments with microtonality.

Taught by Olivier Messiaen and others, and influenced by Béla Bartók, he was a teacher at the University of Amsterdam and later professor of composition and electronic music at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam from 1959 to 1986. Among his notable students are Gheorghi Arnaoudov, Michail Goleminov, Walter Hekster, Tristan Keuris, Liza Lim, Chiel Meijering, Otto Sidharta, and Brian Ferneyhough.

He studied ethnomusicology with Jaap Kunst between 1950 and 1954 and the encounter with the Dagar brothers and Drupad on his first visit to India in 1961 deepened a lifelong interest in "transculturation". He also visited Japan in the 1960s. This manifested itself in his work for Western instruments by the occasional use of microtonality as well as in compositional plans; Gending (1975) for Javanese gamelan is a rare foray into writing for non-western instruments.

He wrote three operas, all to his own libretti, including a television opera Alceste (1963, after Euripides), the one-act De Droom ("the Dream", 1963), and finally Antigone (19891991, after Sophocles).

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[bogorzelak]

If you have more Ton de Leeuw, please let's have it :-)

[aaround]

Very interesting piece. I know him because I believe , he composed an Organ piece.

Thank you for posted