Customer Reviews

Louis Andriessen: Writing to Vermeer

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I first discovered the music of Louis Andriessen, I suddenly understood more clearly why so many contemporary composers (esp. those who'd worked with him) sounded the way they did. Andriessen brings a European edge to the repetitive, jazz & rock tinged music we call "Minimal" in the USA. I ran out and bought just about everything available on CD. Listening to this new opera, however, I'm reminded that every composer has a tendency to repeat themselves. While there are some absolutely stunning moments in this piece (especially those that combine music with concrete sound) I also found the all-female voices got taxing about 90 minutes in. An opera, after all, is a theatrical experience, and I bet this piece (with staging and projections by Peter Greenaway) was dazzling to watch. Where the hell's the DVD?

Compared to many other Andriessen works, "Writing to Vermeer" holds one's attention well as pure music; the sheer sonic diversity and diminished reliance on deafening ostinati makes it damn near user-friendly. But the music shouldn't have to stand on its own; the bits of text that one can make out from time to time are striking enough to make one wish to understand all of it. But the singers, gifted as they are, simply aren't concerned with putting the text across. How I'd once like to hear an Andriessen piece with "pop" voices; the classic-operatic sound used here is more off-putting and distancing than any dissonance could be.

Powerful piece. I enjoyed the freshness of ideas and the combination of melodic and rhythmic aspects. The citation of medieval themes give the piece a great swing.

I can't imagine why Mr. Andriessen's new opera Writing to Vermeer is garnering so much praise -- maybe "you had to be there." On CD, however, it's a grating, annoying, and self-consciously postmodern trial to endure... in fact, I finally had to just give up about halfway through the second disc. Life is too short, after all.