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The Dutch Wind Ensemble
The Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's oeuvre comprises over 100 published works, some of them key works of international composition from the last quarter of the twentieth century. Other works, however, have more of a one-off character. According to a piece in the yearbook The Low Countries Andriessen sees music as a living passion that is constantly being reinvented. It comes as no surprise then that this radical Minimalist is at the centre of attention of the BBC Proms 'Dutch Night' at the Royal Albert Hall on August 28 (see the programme for Prom 58).
The Netherlands Wind Ensemble, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2009, marks the 70th birthday of Andriessen and the 50th of his leading British pupil Steve Martland with performances of Andriessen's classic polemic De staat and Martland's jazz-rock 'dance fantasia' Beat the Retreat, commissioned by the BBC for its 1995 Purcell tercentenary celebrations.
Another former pupil of Andriessen, Cornelis de Bondt creates an idiosyncratic death ritual in Doors Closed out of a barely recognisable recombination and fusion of the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica and Dido's Lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Also played by the Wind Ensemble (for whom it was originally written years ago), it is not an easy listening experience by any means, except for the final section which sounds like a soothingly hot bath, according to the Bondt himself: 'but as a true blue Calvinist, I think you as a listener should have earned that bath first.'
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