Overview

"... things that exist are somewhere, because what is not is nowhere (...) Yet what is somewhere is in a place, and what is in a place is somewhere."

[Aristotle: Physics]

Everything that exists must be somewhere, according to Aristotle, so “place” is a fundamental category in our existence. Our sense of place is an important part of our experiences. The pieces that make up this series highlight these connections to ‘place’ in different ways, without ever naming a specific place.

The first composition in the series was called m². This title refers to the small space of a living room concert for which it was intended. The four sections represent the four walls with repetitions as small niches and fermata as windows to the space outside. The first performance took place in the studio of the artist Michiel Knaven on a snowy December afternoon by recorder player Geesche Geddert, to whom this work is dedicated.

spaCe is a doubt is a song for mezzo-soprano and alto saxophone and an extension of m². The text is a mesostichon (with the word SPACE as the central axis) derived from a reflection on space by Georges Perec in which a multitude of associations and ideas emerge about our relationship to places. Perec writes about the places that "might be points of reference" but is concerned that "time is going to wear them away" and concludes that places can only survive by meticulously describing them. spAce is a doubt was first performed in a small café by Berber Vis with Jos Baggermans on saxophone.

a fEw signs (written for Jelle Beckers) consists of twenty fragments in four parts that can be read like a poem: with short silences between the individual lines. It is also derived from m², and like m², the four sections represent the four walls of an interior space. Within these four sections, however, the space is viewed from different perspectives. They are the traces with which a faded place can be reconstructed.

Each of the twelve pieces from scrAps from a traCe (written for Tamara Laverman and Hanke Scheffer)  represents an aspect of places that connect us with the world. They are places where, for example, our origin lies, but also those we depart to, in search of untouched places or the places in relation to which we determine our direction.

But our environment is fragile and “space is a doubt,” according to Georges Perec. The traces that can be found, help us to mark and describe the places we want to preserve.

In connection to music we often talk about time, but rarely about place. Plato used the term “chora” for the place where abstract concepts were cast into transient, perceptable forms. In a sense, this is also a metaphor for music: a place where ideas take on an ephemeral form.

In Places, this materialization emerges in the alternation of four different themes in the fourteen sections that make up the piece. In the sections called Lines, the melodies of the first piece in the series, m², are given a new counterpoint. The other sections, entitled Clouds, Circles and Colours, are more or less articulated manifestations of the same underlying basic material. The indeterminacy of some passages fits the "logic of the ambiguous" with which Plato's concept of "chora" is interpreted by philosophers.

Score example

fragment of houSe (#8 of scrAps from a traCe), with a 'cut up' quote from m²

Sketch

Sketch for attiC (#5 of scrAps from a traCe)

Works in the series:

m² (2017)

scored for

• tenor recorder (and piano ad lib.)

Duration:

ca. 3 minutes

First performance: 10 December 2017, Atelier Koewegje, Zwolle by Geesche Geddert

Geesche Geddert performing m²

spaCe is a doubt (2019)

scored for

• mezzo soprano
• alto saxophone

Text: after Georges Perec

Duration:

ca. 6 minutes

First performance: 10 December 2019, Café De Kuiperij, Zwolle by Berber Vis, mezzo soprano and Jos Baggermans, saxophone

Jos Baggermans, saxophone and Berber Vis, mezzo-soprano performing spaCe is a doubt

a fEw signs (2020)

scored for

• guitar

Duration:

ca. 7 minutes

First performance: pending

scrAps from a traCe (2021)

Twelve pieces:

- exiSt

- birthplaCe

- depArture

- untouChed

- attiC

- shaPeless

- traCe

- houSe

- Points

- frAgile

- retAin

- incorPorated

scored for

• piano four hands

Duration:

ca. 30 minutes

First performance: pending

Places (2022)

scored for

• orchestra

  (unspecified instrumentation; at least 2 wind players, 2 string players, 2 percussionists, 2 singers)

Duration:

ca. 10 minutes

First performance: 9 September 2022, Reulandzaal Conservatory Zwolle by the ArtEZ Project Orchestra, Harrie Janssen conducting