Ensemble SCALA, centred around the 31-tone organ, returns this season with a new programme full of microtonal sounds. The title of this concert is partly derived from the Stichting Nauwluisterendheid, founded in 1960 by Professor Adriaan Fokker, which officially changed its name to the Huygens-Fokker Foundation in 1967. With the peculiar term nauwluisterendheid (close listening), Fokker referred both to the small intervals of the 31-tone system, where the tuning is finely nuanced, and to the skill of perceiving these tones accurately by ear—a true art in itself.
It is the task of Ensemble SCALA, specialists in this field, to perform compositions featuring microtones so that the audience can experience the art of nauwluisterendheid firsthand. The programme includes a new work by the well-known Finnish composer Juhani Nuorvala (1961). Nuorvala, whose music is notable for its accessible gestures and sonorities while making masterful use of microtones, is also a composition lecturer at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Also featured is the long-awaited premiere of a work by Arnold Marinissen (1966). Marinissen, who is not only a percussionist and composer but also currently head of classical music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, is known for his fondness for minimal music and percussive sonorities. Whether this predilection will be apparent in his new composition for Ensemble SCALA remains to be heard.
Alongside these two world premieres, the programme includes works for various smaller ensembles, ensuring that the entire concert maintains a fresh and varied character.
The Art of ‘Nauwluisterendheid’
Programme
Arnold Marinissen – Rapprochement (2017) premiere
Steffen Krebber – Zerscheinen (2010)
Juhani Nuorvala – Marche funèbre tricésimoprimale (2017) premiere
Terry Riley – Aleph 2 (2012) (arrangement by Ere Lievonen, 2015)
Arnold Marinissen about his new work Rapprochement
Rapprochement: (especially in international affairs) an establishment or resumption of harmonious relations / a work for microtonal ensemble by Arnold Marinissen, written for Ensemble SCALA / Stichting Huygens-Fokker.
The core quartet of Marinissen’s Rapprochement consists of Carrillo piano, Fokker organ, meantone guitar, percussion; four instruments, each with its own highly individual world of tuning and intonation. The Carrillo piano, with its extremely fine tuning of 96 notes in an octave, offers a microscopic view on the inside of one octave. The 31 tones within the octave of the Fokker organ cater well for just intonation, and at the same time offer a rather distinct intonational flavour. The meantone guitar of Ensemble SCALA’s guitarist Stefan Gerritsen uses a selection of pitches from the Huygens-Fokker scale, allowing for enharmonic differentiation in most keys. Percussion, a family of instruments rather than an instrument, offers tunings that range from well-tempered to voluptuously rich, harmonically chaotic, fuzzy to the point of unrecognizable, or even completely random.
Marinissen gives each of the core instruments the space to speak for itself, in its own intonational language – at the same time inviting it to have a tranquil conversation with the others.
Although Rapprochement can be performed by the core quartet only, Marinissen composed two so- called shadow parts which allow a number of players to join in, mingle and parrot. The shadow players discreetly follow and double the core players, copy as well as they can their intonation and timing, and thus provide the core quartet with a a subtle and flexible instrumentation – a musical shadow.
The composition was supported by the Fonds Podiumkunsten.
Support
This programme was made possible with the support of:
Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Olga Heldring Fonds, Gemeente Amsterdam (district East) and Stichting Fonds voor de Geld- en Effectenhandel.
Also the SNS REAAL Fonds – renamed Fonds 21 (renovation Fokker organ), Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (renovation Fokker organ), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ and Huygens-Fokker Foundation.
Fokker organ concert
Sunday 14 January 2018, 11:00 a.m.
Admission fee €12.50 (€10.00 reduced price)
Small Hall, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ
Piet Heinkade 1, 1019 BR Amsterdam
Performers
Ensemble SCALA: Raymond Honing, flute / Michel Marang, clarinet / Manuel Visser, viola / Stefan Gerritsen, 31-tone guitar / Anne Veinberg, Carrillo piano & keyboards / Ere Lievonen, Fokker organ / Glenn Liebaut, percussion