Louis Andriessen - The nine symphonies of Beethoven for orchestra and ice cream bell

Louis Andriessen (1939) De negen symfonieën van Beethoven voor promenade-orkest en ijscobel (1970) Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer, son of Hendrik Andriessen. After a few youthful works influenced by neo-classicism and serialism in the manner of Boulez he moved steadily away from the postwar European avant garde and towards American minimalism, jazz and Stravinsky. Out of these elements he has developed a musical language marked by extremes of ritual and masquerade, of monumentality and intimacy, of formal rigour and intuitive empiricism. The epitome of the Hague School, he is regarded as the most influential Dutch composer of his generation. Andriessen was born the youngest son of a musical family. His father and his elder brother Jurriaan, who passed on to him his musical experiences of Stravinskian neo-classicism and jazz, were his earliest mentors. Between 1957 and 1962 he studied composition at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Van Baaren. After receiving the composition prize there, he continued his studies with Berio in Berlin and Milan (1962--1965). Back in the Netherlands he played an active role in the increasing politicization of the arts put into practice during the Holland Festival in 1969 with the collective work Reconstructie, a music-theatre morality based on the character of Che Guevara; the composers involved were Schat, van Vlijmen, Reinbert de Leeuw and Misha Mengelberg, all former students of Van Baaren. Later the same year Andriessen was involved in the Notenkrakersactie, the disruption of a concert by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, whose artistic policy the protesters regarded as reactionary. This controversial act has since come to be seen as a turning-point in postwar Dutch musical life. For Andriessen it led to a permanent abandonment of the medium of the symphony orchestra. Convinced that musical renewal cannot be separated from the renewal of performance practice, he set up in 1972 De Volharding (’Perseverance’) to perform his composition of the same name, and similarly in 1977, Hoketus, the result of a project at the Royal Conservatory; both ensembles have gone on to stimulate extensive new repertories. Andriessen began to teach composition and instrumentation at the Royal Conservatory in 1973, and in the mid-1980s started to be in great demand as a guest lecturer, particularly in the USA. The 9 Symphonies of Beethoven is not so much a comment on Beethoven himself as it is on the institution of the symphony. The twentieth century saw the breakdown of the large orchestra as the favoured compositional tool. Composers tended to use smaller ensembles with unconventional instrumental combinations in order to avoid any association with the bloated German Romanticism of the late 19th century. The piece is essentially a highlights reel of all nine symphonies with brief interpolations of other instantly recognisable music. In many ways, the 9 Symphonies was conceived in the spirit of the postmodern mashup that has become popular in recent years. The question is, does removing the context and presenting only the most popular bits make the piece more or less poignant? Is the experience enhanced by listening to 15 minutes of buildup or is it better just to listen to the best bits on their own? The symphonies are presented in order, generally speaking, with Für Elise, the Moonlight Sonata, and Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture making cameo appearances. Andriessen uses stylistic as well as melodic quotation and incorporates Europop, boogie-woogie and lounge music. The final joke is the interminable number of V-I cadences at the end of the piece. In this case, the jab is directed at Beethoven, who had an affinity for signalling the end of his symphonies more emphatically than was perhaps strictly necessary. The conclusion of his fifth symphony is a particularly fitting example. 9 Symphonies is an early work of Andriessen’s and was the only time he wrote anything for orchestra. His 1976 work De Staat (The Republic) brought him into the international spotlight and remains his most famous work.