Discography

“But the tender side of Andriessen is revealed in the ecstatic Hadewijch, an erotic 13th-century text delivered voluptuously by the soprano Susan Narucki, chomping bass clarinets nipping at her ankles.” BBC Music Magazine

Elmer Schönberger (co-author with Andriessen of a book about Stravinsky entitled Apollonian Clockwork) has provided the following succinct synopsis of De Materie:

The dramaturgy is that of a tableau vivant, peopled by (mainly Dutch) historical figures; they sing their own historical words thereby continually throwing new light on the subjects. These figures are united by their scientific, religious, artistic, and political idealism, as well as their common willingness to pay the price exacted by their ideals. In part 1, Gorlaeus, the early seventeenth-century philosopher who died at a young age, reinstates the ancient Greek theory of atomism. In part 2, Hadewijch, the thirteenth-century poetess from Brabant, sings the praises of the unio mystica in music rooted in a rational compositional architecture based on the proportions of a cathedral dating from the same century. Both part 2 and part 3 (“Stijl” suggest that despite its title De Materie is mainly concerned with the limits of rationalit. In “Stijl,” whose form and instrumentation were modeled on Mondrian’ Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, the emphasis is on the metaphysical inspiration of Neo-Plasticism. Finally part 4 once again takes up the theme of science - time personified by Marie Curie— also the themes of love and death as expressed by the Dutch symbolist poet Willem Kloos.