Composed and Decomposed:  Music of our Centuries

Columbia University's Miller Theater is a regular meeting ground for new music lovers, and although I passed on the season-opening retrospectives of the works of the Steve Reich, I was delighted to find Ensemble Sospeso had a Louis Andriessen program, as he is a composer I have a love/hate relationship with. Having heard one of his works broadcast on WNYC about twenty years ago, I had to find out who this composer was. Way before Nonesuch discovered him, we had to get the Dutch LPs through Records International for a pretty penny; remember, ten dollars was a lot for a disc in those pre-CD days. I collected five of them on Donemus/Composer's Voice, and looking back, half are irritating in their minimalism, though so different from the Reich-Glass-Adams motoric mode. The other half still charm and surprise, so I was curious to see what he'd been up to in the last decade or so. Sadly, his health prevented the composer from appearing for the scheduled pre-concert talk.

Hout, for sax, marimba, guitar and piano from 1991, was clever and cute, though not deep, with its jazz-like sax riffs and honks. If it were a boy, it would be called a twink. The 1996 Tao, for solo piano, koto, women's voice and chamber orchestra, used woodblocks and pregnant pauses, the brittle piano with and without sustain. It is no slur to say this is Andriessen does Takemitsu. Then it sounded, rhythmically, more like Cantonese opera, with harsh dissonances, chunky Messiaen piano chords and even more so when the chamber orchestra came in. Then, solo voice and amplified koto; a strange but poignant end.

I dreaded hearing 1982's Disco, but it turned out to be a wonderful violin and piano piece, with piano's overtones ringing like a harmonium. The teasing between Stephen Gosling's piano and Mark Menzies's violin great larger and grander, with dissonant violin slashes. La Voile du Bonheur is a romantic Fauré-meets-Amy Beach piece for piano and violin, which cut into a pop song a la the Melody Four. It was camp but it wasn't kitsch. The prize of the evening was the world premiere of a very funny Andriessen collaboration with filmmaker Hal Hartley, and electronics by Michel van der Aa. I enjoyed it so much my notes are totally illegible. I came away with a new appreciation of the composer, and the same mixed feelings about his works.

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