MODERN FOLK

What do you do when you aren’t composing?

I am not a professional composer in the sense that I make my living with it, I work in a business academy, lecturing in cross-cultural communication. It is a completely different world indeed! In my free time, I like to read poetry, in many languages. Out of passion for literature, but also because, being a composer, a poem is for me an erring soul, seeking for embodiment in a song. I am always curious to find new texts for vocal music. And I like to travel too. Working part-time in higher education, I have more opportunity to make trips, and it enables me to give masterclasses, participate in a jury, assisting to a premiere abroad. I nowadays do not do anything without at least some relation to music…

How did your composing journey start? And what other pieces have you composed?

Although I studied musicology and even went to Russia to do research, I discovered my musical creativity only ten years ago, when I turned 50.  I turned also to music for the second time in my life, after a long period of mainly parenting, teaching French (I first studied linguistics) and of no musical activities apart from playing the classical guitar (not too badly, but still at amateur level). It felt sort of ‘illegal’ back then, to make a composer’s business card without having studied composition with a teacher and having written only a few pieces. Yet I felt suddenly convinced that a big storage reservoir of music had grown inside me, like those artificial lakes in the mountains. I just had to open the locks of the dam. I decided to reduce my job to a part-time position, to create time. And indeed, since then I have written about 130 works, some of them of symphonic proportions, and I have won some international competitions too, to my surprise. Last week, I finished my 13th string quartet.

What influence have your cultural experiences (Dutch, Russian) had on composing this piece?

As a teacher of cultural diversity in my professional life, I often realize how deeply ‘Dutch’ I am, but in music I am not. I actually had no relationship with Dutch musical folklore apart from singing St. Nicolas songs and other traditional songs in school as a kid. Folklore culture had already vanished into history by then. Maybe all that is left from a living folklore culture nowadays are funny Carnaval hits. I may rather have a Slavic soul from a past life: the reality is, that I feel very attracted to Russian music. My study at the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory during the Soviet era had a big influence on my music taste: I like to continue writing melodious music and still see immense opportunities in classical forms like sonata and fugue. I owe this to the great Russian examples. In Leningrad, I discovered fantastic Soviet composers like Myaskovsky or Shebalin, who wrote masterpieces in form and immortal melodies. What I certainly owe to the Russian school, especially to Sergey Taneyev, is the ‘climax ending,’ with strettos of all themes combined. That is also the reason that I chose to interweave the melodies of the cello duet at the end of the piece. This preference for the multithematic contrapuntal development has become my ‘Russian’ composer’s DNA.

How did it feel to compose this piece? Did any of your own personal memories come up while composing it?

It was a pleasure to discover the musical potential of Dutch folk song melodies. I never realized we have such an Aladdin’s cave of music at the Meertens Institute [ed. with the Liederenbank]. I will certainly explore it again. Julia’s project had actually led to more compositions than just this one. As a matter of fact, my eldest son, who works at the classical radio, told me about the project and I enthusiastically started to write a piano trio on a Dutch pirate song I remembered from school, without looking at the blog. Only later, when I contacted Julia, did I hear that she already selected other melodies for this project. Then I wrote a fantasy for guitar and two cellos on those melodies. But it turned out to be too long for the CD. Julia however liked the music, so she asked to write something small for just two cellos. Eventually I wrote this small piece [that has gotten recorded on the CD].

Thanks to Julia, a lot of musical memories from my childhood came to life again, and now, as a composer, I realize how much potential these melodies have as themes for the neoclassical works I write. After this enriching experience with folk music, I spent my vacation in Georgia  and I could not resist exploring Georgian folklore music too.  I came home with a lot of Georgian songs. A week later, my 12^th string quartet on Georgian folklore themes was ready. (Thanks Julia, for your inspiring suggestion, that has led to already four new works!)

Was writing a piece based on folk roots a different composing experience than writing a classical contemporary piece?

Not so much, as the melodies are close to my tonal language. I am used to write and work with diatonic melodies. The main difficulty was not having the opportunity to alter the themes too much, such that they would stay recognizable. Normally, when I am composing, I adapt my own melodies to make them suitable for polyphonic use, like canonic treatment. And a second theme, however contrasting, I always compose with the purpose to bring it at a certain moment in superposition with the first, according to the teachings of Taneyev. I keep changing the themes for the sake of musical form, going in circles so to speak. Now I had to do some research about the themes first, without making changes to them. Due to the shortness of the cello duet, I completely neglected the song texts, whereas in the fantasy for two cellos and guitar, I also expressed through the music the moods of the rather sadly-ending love song. But in both cases, I did not have to change my musical language too much. It may be a good idea to do more with folk melodies, and I am happy that Julia and Fred play my music so well!

Warm greetings from Nijmegen!

Rolf