Happy 100th birthday, György Kurtág!
On 19 February, György Kurtág hopes to celebrate his 100th birthday. That very day the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ will organise the concert Happy 100 György!, featuring music by Kurtág himself and kindred spirits, as well as three new pieces by Dutch composers. The day after, Die Stechardin, his second opera, will premiere in Budapest.
György Kurtág, the Hungarian grandmaster of incisive aphorisms (Budapest, 1926), is no stranger in the Netherlands. As early as the 1970s, pianist Geoffrey Madge and the Residentie Orkest championed his existentialist music. Yet he rose to true fame in the 1990s, when Reinbert de Leeuw started advocating his music, dedicating many memorable concerts to the amiable composer, with whom he forged a close bond.
In 2016, the Muziekgebouw honoured Kurtág on the occasion of his 90th birthday. During a festive portrait concert, De Leeuw conducted the Asko|Schönberg through works by Webern (a great inspiration for Kurtág), György Ligeti, his namesake and compatriot, and works by Kurtág himself. In the birthday concert on 19 February 2026 again a work by Ligeti will be played: his groundbreaking Poème Symphonique, whose music consists of the ticking of 100 metronomes wound to different tempos.
Kurtág and Reinbert de Leeuw
In 2016, Kurtág and his inseparable wife Márta were too frail to travel from Budapest to Amsterdam for the concert. However, they did appear in a preview of the documentary The Three Kurtágs, made by their niece Judit. This was unique: György and Márta Kurtág often performed as a piano duo, but they never became public figures like Ligeti; they lived a secluded life.
Sitting comfortably together on their sofa, the two discuss the progress of the CD recordings of a large part of Kurtág’s work, which Reinbert de Leeuw has been working on since 2013. They charmingly bounce off each other in a lively conversation, in which a sentence started by one is naturally finished by the other – as if they were literally speaking with one voice. Their love for each other and for De Leeuw is palpable.
They regret not being able to be physically present during the recordings, but because Reinbert plays these back over the phone after each session and also visits them regularly in person, they are still able to comment on them. The notoriously critical Kurtág, who sometimes calls out ‘Nein, nicht so!’ when Reinbert merely raises his arms to begin a piece, is now full of praise. ‘It’s as if they recorded the music in their mother tongue,’ he says with shining eyes.
Musical mother tongue
The three-disc CD box containing all of Kurtág’s conducted choral and ensemble works was released a year later. In the accompanying booklet Kurtág gratefully refers to it as “a royal gift”. That is no exaggeration, because on this release from the German label ECM, Reinbert de Leeuw once again surpassed himself. With his relentless determination to get to the heart of the matter, he leads Asko|Schönberg, Groot Omroepkoor, Cappella Amsterdam and a selection of soloists to intense performances, that allow Kurtág’s soul-piercing sounds to penetrate to the very core.
This unique historical document is still available for purchase for less than forty euros – a bargain. Kurtág’s suggestion that the musicians and singers perform his music as if it were their own mother tongue is no idle chatter. Language is extremely important to the sensitive Hungarian composer – in more ways than one.
He often refers to Béla Bartók as “my musical mother tongue”. But he has created his own unique grammar from poignant, aphoristic bursts of sound that spring from a deep inner necessity. He is a great lover of poetry and literature: of the eleven pieces on the compilation, seven are vocal. Kurtág even learned Russian so that he could read Dostoevsky; three cycles on the CD box set are in this language.
The best known of these is Messages from the Late Miss R.V. Trussova, with which he made his breakthrough in Western Europe in the 1980s. In 21 miniatures, a soprano sings of bitter experiences of love. The longest song lasts 3 minutes, the shortest 22 seconds. In that short span of time, Kurtág sketches an entire novel. Unfortunately none of the three vocal cycles will be performed in the concert Happy 100 György! on 19 February. Het Muziek, successor to Asko|Schönberg, will however perform Akrostichon – Wortspiel for soprano and ensemble by Unsuk Chin.
Kurtág’s first opera causes a sensation
In 2016 the 90-year-old Kurtág was still working on his first and so far only opera, Fin de Partie (Endgame), based on Samuel Beckett’s play of the same name. He had seen it in Paris in 1957 on Ligeti’s recommendation and called it “one of the most powerful experiences of my life”. The opera was commissioned by Teatro alla Scala Milan in 2010, and he had been working on it ever since. Together with Mártá, he significantly condensed the story; only sixty percent of the original text remained. On the other hand, they added Beckett’s poem Roundelay as a prologue.
This prologue premiered during a festival in honour of his 90th birthday at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where he himself once studied. The world premiere of the complete opera took place in November 2018 at the Teatro alla Scala, directed by Pierre Audi, who died last year, with Markus Stenz conducting. Kurtág and his wife Mártá were again unable to attend; she died a year later.
This first work by the then 92-year-old composer caused a real sensation. The absurd libretto, which barely has any plot and revolves around four people waiting for an indeterminate ending, was immediately hailed as a classic by the international press. In March 2019, the opera was also performed at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and again Markus Stenz. Theaterkrant called it “a true musical masterpiece”, while de Volkskrant saw how “supreme aimlessness can lead to supreme beauty”. Unfortunately, I had to miss the performance due to illness.
Fin de Partie (c) Ruth WaltzEver-expanding piano series Jatékok (Games)
For Kurtág’s 95th birthday in 2021, the Muziekgebouw organised an ambitious three-day festival, which was unfortunately cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. Instead, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard played excerpts from Jatékok (Games) via a live stream. In this ever-expanding series of miniatures for one and/or two pianos – which he himself calls “pedagogical performance pieces” – Kurtág explores a musical idea or portrays a friend.
He frequently played these with Mártá, and they recorded a number of them on CD. In 2021, Aimard presented several brand-new miniatures, because even at the age of 95, Kurtág was still composing every day. During the concert Happy 100 György! on 19 February, Het Muziek will play a selection from Jatékok in an arrangement by Olivier Cuendet. This organist and composer previously made an orchestral version of Zwiegespräch for string quartet and electronics, which Kurtág composed together with his son of the same name.
The icing on the cake is the rarely performed Lebenslauf for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart and two basset horns. Kurtág’s works are placed in context with Ligeti’s Poème symphonique mentioned above and works by Unsuk Chin and Thomas Adès. There are also three world premieres, inspired by the number one hundred. Mayke Nas wrote 100 seconds, Huba de Graaff composed 100 notes, and Jasper de Bock made 100 years (I, II, III, IV).
Kurtág finishes second opera at the age of 99
Kurtág completed his first opera when he was 92 years old, but he did not rest on his laurels afterwards. Commissioned by the Budapest Music Centre, he composed a new opera, Die Stechardin, which will premiere on 20 February 2026 during a birthday festival in Budapest.
The libretto is based on letters and writings by the German scientist Georg Christoph Lindberg, who had a relationship with his student Maria Dorothea Stechard, twenty years his junior. Although she died at the age of seventeen and he later remarried, she always remained his great love. ‘She reconciled me with all of humanity,’ Lindberg wrote to a friend.
The libretto poses recognisable questions about life. Is there an afterlife? Does our soul live on after our death? Is there love that transcends the grave? The action is set in another world – heaven, an alternative reality? – where Maria waits for her beloved to rejoin her.
Kurtág completed this three-part monologue for soprano and orchestra in June 2025 and orchestrated it together with Zsolt Serei. Maria Husmann, who has been working with Kurtág for decades, sings the title role, accompanied by the Concerto Budapest Orchestra under András Keller.
Farewell
It is not surprising that Kurtág was drawn to this theme: in 2019, he lost Mártá, who had been his partner for 72 years and remained his inspiration throughout his life. While his opera Fin de partie can be viewed as an artistic testament, Die Stechardin may be considered a farewell, celebrating the beauty of life and love. It expresses reconciliation with death and Kurtág’s hope for a speedy reunion with his beloved.
May he be able to attend the world premiere on 20 February 2026 in Budapest, and then join Márta, wherever she may be.
On 19 February, I will moderate the introduction to the birthday concert Happy 100 György in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. Starting at 7.15 p.m., admission free. I will speak with Fedor Teunisse, artistic director of Het Muziek, and the composers De Bock, De Graaff and Nas.
#DieStechardin #GyörgyKurtág #GyörgyLigeti #HubaDeGraaff #MaykeNas #UnsukChin
Sportschoolopera ‘Liebesleid’ van Huba de Graaff: hoe maakbaar is ons geluk?
Kan een mens zichzelf gelukkig sporten? Kun je liefdesverdriet wegtrainen? – Dit zijn de vragen die de Nederlandse componist Huba de Graaff stelt in haar nieuwste opera, Liebesleid. Deze beleeft zaterdag 8 april zijn première in het Shape all-in centre aan de Van Hallstraat 617 in Amsterdam. Op het ritme van ratelende sporttoestellen werkt een tromboneorkest zich fysiek uit de naad, aangemoedigd door twee lyrische sopranen met Kantiaanse peptalk. Zij gaan op zoek naar het sublieme geluksgevoel vanuit de sportschool.
Zingende apen
De Graaff is een van de origineelste stemmen in ons vaderlandse muziekleven. In 2013 verraste zij vriend en vijand met Apera, een opera gebaseerd op het gezang en gekrijs van apen. Zij verdiepte zich in de manier waarop allerlei apensoorten met elkaar communiceren, maakte hier opnames van en vertaalde deze naar muziek.
Het resultaat, dat deels verwant is aan Vlaamse polyfonie, werd uitgevoerd door de – met aapachtig haar uitgedoste – zangers van het Egidius Kwartet. Bijgestaan door acteur Marien Jongewaard lieten zij ‘tekstuele en muzikale elementen op elkaar botsen tot een mix van serene muziek en uit zijn voegen barstende taal’, zoals een criticus opmerkte.
Lustvol gekreun en gesteun
In haar voortdurende zoektocht naar de oorsprong van menselijk gezang ging De Graaff twee jaar later nog een stapje verder. In de even tegendraadse als originele Pornopera produceren een mannelijke en een vrouwelijke acteur menselijke paringsgeluiden, begeleid door harpklanken.
Het lustvolle gekreun en gesteun ligt volgens de componist aan de basis van onze wens tot zingen. Het mede op een verhaal van Ovidius gebaseerde libretto over incest bleef een uur lang boeien. ‘De pornopera van Huba de Graaff is het tegenovergestelde van een vluggertje’, noteerde Theaterkrant.
Zwetend op sporttoestel liefdesverdriet verwerken
Nu is er dan Liebesleid: een sportschool-opera, waarin De Graaff en librettist Erik-Ward Geerlings de maakbaarheid van ons geluk bevragen. Actrice Soetkin Demey, die eerder indruk maakte in de ‘pornopera’ speelt ook nu een hoofdrol. Doodongelukkig probeert zij haar liefdesverdriet weg te trainen met een stevige work-out in de sportschool.
De actrice wordt muzikaal bijgestaan door twee zangeressen en studenten uit de tromboneklas van meestertrombonist Brandt Attema. De overige muziek bestaat uit het gezoem en geratel van de sporttoestellen en het gezucht en gehijg van sporters en uitvoerders.
Benieuwd of ik als publiek ook geacht word mij in het zweet te werken…
#Apera #BrandtAttema #EgidiusKwartet #ErikWardGeerlings #HubaDeGraaff #Liebesleid #Pornopera #SoetkinDemey
Cultuurvandaal
Gezien de recente perikelen rond de landstitel van Feyenoord is het thema nog altijd actueel: voetbalrellen zijn een enorm maatschappelijk probleem. Toch schijnen wij het normaal te vinden dat de politie keer op keer massaal moet uitrukken om heethoofdige supporters in het gareel te krijgen.
Dat die politie-inzet en de door hooligans aangebrachte vernielingen oneindig veel meer kosten dan de fooi die wordt besteed aan cultuur, deert schijnbaar niemand. Al in 2004 schreef ik hierover een column in het muziektijdschrift Luister. Helaas is sindsdien de cultuursector nóg veel sterker gekort.
Cultuurvandaal
Op een mooie lentedag fietste ik naar Theater de Balie in Amsterdam, mij verheugend op de opening van het Muziektheaterfestival aldaar. Eenmaal aanbeland bij mijn bestemming – het Leidseplein – leek daar de oorlog te zijn uitgebroken. Tientallen in gevechtstenu gestoken ME-ers postten bij gepantserde politiebussen; het glas van de tramhokjes lag aan diggelen; het asfalt was bezaaid met afval en mijn doorgang werd versperd door roodhoofdige, bierlurkende en schreeuwende mannen. Behoedzaam baande ik mij een weg door deze barbaarse horde, waarna twee potige bewakers mij schichtig toelieten tot het theater.
Marien Jongewaard in Lautsprecher Arnolt Foto Tom Croes
Was de oorlog inderdaad losgebarsten? Welnee, het was feest, Ajax was landskampioen geworden! Ietwat beduusd nam ik plaats in de zaal, waar de voorstelling ‘wegens omstandigheden’ later begon. En oh ironie, het ging over oorlog: in Lautsprecher Arnolt van Huba de Graaff* wordt de hoofdpersoon omringd door luidsprekers die hem toebrullen zijn menselijke moraal te verruilen voor een niets ontziend opportunisme. Terwijl Arnolt binnen het ene na het anders slachtoffer maakte, gingen buiten de voetbalvandalen op de vuist. Eens temeer vormde kunst een verontrustende spiegel van de maatschappij.
Toch las ik de volgende dag dat de inhuldiging van Ajax ‘voorbeeldig’ was verlopen; burgemeester Cohen vond het ‘hartstikke gezellig’. Wie durft bij zoveel zonnigheid te zeuren over geld? Die paar tonnetjes politie- , schoonmaak- en reparatiekosten verhalen we toch gewoon op de kunstbegroting? ‘Zes miljoen minder’, kraaide wethouder Hannah Belliot; ‘We heffen gewoon het RSO op’, zong staatssecretaris Medy van der Laan haar voor. Het draait in het leven warempel niet om Shakespeare, Bach of Van Maanen, maar om Sikora, Van der Vaart en Vertier. Laat de elite zelf betalen voor haar bespottelijke behoefte aan cultuur: schoppen is creatiever dan scheppen!
Ik word cultuurvandaal. Tijdens een prachtuitvoering sloop ik feestelijk de stoelen uit het Concertgebouw; in de Schouwburg verscheur ik jubelend de gordijnen en bij de Opera sla ik ontroerd de lampen stuk. – Eens zien hoe snel de kunstbegroting dan wordt opgekrikt.
* Huba de Graaff presenteerde onlangs haar opera Liebesleid. Op 22 + 23 juni gaat in het Holland Festival haar nieuwste opera in première: The Naked Shit Pictures.
Huba de Graaff: ‘Art must be provocative’ #HF17
The artist’s duo Gilbert & George had travelled to Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg to witness a spitting image impersonation by Christopher (countertenor) & Nigel Robson (tenor) in The Naked Shit Songs by Dutch composer Huba de Graaff. She based her opera on a literal transcript of a television interview of Theo van Gogh with Gilbert & George in 1996. It was premièred in the Holland Festival to great acclaim on Thursday 22 June, and can be heard there once more on Friday 23 June.
Huba de Graaff with Gilbert & George, Christopher & Nigel Robson and Xander Vledder, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam 21 June 2017 (c) Jessica UijttewaalI interviewed De Graaff for the programme book, and for a pre concert talk (it was streamed live, see below).
In 1969 Huba de Graaff saw Gilbert & George posed as living sculptures on the stairs of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, in 1996 she perused their Naked Shit Pictures in the same venue. Now she presents her opera The Naked Shit Songs, based on an interview of Theo van Gogh with the artists about this controversial exhibition. De Graaff: ‘Art must be provocative.’
Huba de Graaff (Amsterdam, 1959) operates somewhat in the margin of Dutch musical life, creating music theatre on a wide variety of subjects most people would not readily associate with opera. Electronics and visuals are a given, often examining the relation between man and machine. In her opera Lautsprecher Arnolt (2003) the main roles are performed by loudspeakers; in The Death of Poppaea (2006) cameras abound; in Liebesleid (2017) a woman trains off her lovesickness, panting and puffing away during a fierce workout in a fitness centre.
Apera
A recurrent theme is the relation between speech and song. De Graaff: ‘To me it’s clear that singing came first, and that our spoken language developed from this over a long period of time. This is not only evidenced by the tone languages that have survived to this day, but also by the fact that both children and demented elderly people sing. Singing makes it easier for us to remember and cherish important events.’
To prove her point De Graaff studied the way monkeys communicate, basing her Apera (2013) on her findings: ‘Surprisingly their shrieks and shouts at times come very close to renaissance polyphony.’ She went a step further in Pornopera (2015), crafting the libretto from the lustful moaning and groaning of a copulating couple. Or, in her own words: ‘everything that happens with your voice BEFORE you start singing’. In The Naked Shit Songs she approaches the theme from the opposite angle: ‘I call it a “retropera”, because now I’m turning spoken language into song.’
Television interview on Naked Shit Pictures
The idea for the opera was suggested by the actor/singer Jan Elbertse, with whom she had worked before. ‘In 1996 he had videotaped a television interview from Theo van Gogh with Gilbert & George on their exhibition The Naked Shit Pictures. I am a great admirer of theirs, and was fascinated by how light-heartedly they discuss precarious themes such as love, tolerance, homosexuality and Islam. I decided to set the entire interview to music, including all the repetitions, hesitations and slips of the tongue. It took me a month to type everything out.’
Van Gogh was controversial because he was a thoroughbred provocateur, openly ranting against Islamic people, sometimes even calling them backward goatfuckers. De Graaff: ‘I absolutely abhor such aggressive statements. Fortunately he refrained from them in his talk with Gilbert & George, for he was a great interviewer. He asked the right questions, putting his guests at ease while avidly smoking cigarette after cigarette.
You see Gilbert & George gradually relax, even becoming a bit tipsy in the end. I was struck by how much our world has changed since 1996. Nowadays it’s unthinkable anyone would smoke or drink alcohol on television, let alone innocently address politically incorrect subjects. Since 9/11 and the assassination of Theo in 2004 the Western world has completely lost its innocence.’
Art must ask questions
While working on the typescript her already high esteem for Gilbert & George intensified: ‘I love their motto “Art is for all”, and how they keep stressing their work should be understandable to taxi-drivers and children. With this in mind I composed very singable melodies.
I’m also impressed by their immense love and tolerance toward mankind. Especially striking is their reiterated praise for Islam, referring to it as a religion of love. They call themselves Christian artists, though admitting to being “very unchristian” and fearing Christian fundamentalists. Thus they continuously raise uneasy issues, which to me is the essence of art: it must ask questions and be provocative.’
Gentlemen showing their arses
Gilbert & George are usually immaculately dressed, but in their Naked Shit Pictures the purebred British gentlemen relentlessly expose their bare buttocks and create images from their own excrements. De Graaff: ‘This inspired me to design a “turd-theme’, a bass run that keeps popping up in different guises, while my musical structure mirrors how they model their turds into strict but florid and beautiful frameworks.’
Naked from Shitty Naked Human World 1994 . 338 x 639 cm (c) Gilbert & GeorgeThe Naked Shit Songs has six movements, each comprising exactly a thousand words, preceded by a prologue of fifty and concluded with an epilogue of seventy-five words. This layout may seem haphazard and rational, but was consciously chosen. De Graaff: ‘Thus I avoided for my opera to become kitschy, for it could easily have turned into a mere succession of jaunty songs. Shaping my material into a tough structure made it possible to introduce a new version of the theme with each subdivision.’
Choir doubles Gilbert & George
The first part is spoken, only after a thousand words Gilbert & George burst into song. De Graaff: ‘They start on a scream that follows their explanation of how they make their images: …we go into a black bag. And inside this bag we shout: Aaaaaah! Halfway through also Theo starts singing. They are accompanied by a musical ensemble of double bass, piano, synthesizer, electric guitar and percussion, and a choir that doubles their lines or interjects its own comments. For this I engaged the GALA-Choir, consisting of gay and lesbian singers.’
Because of the frequent references to Islam, the composer was convinced she also needed a choir with a Muslim background. This proved less simple to realise than she’d thought: ‘I have many Kurdish friends who drink alcohol and come to see my opera’s. They were not daunted by Apera or Pornopera and responded enthusiastically when I told them about my Naked Shit Songs.
‘Muslim choir’
Some of them were even willing to sing in the ‘Muslim choir’, yet after reading the libretto they demurred. They condemn Theo’s murder as a matter of course, but it’s one thing to be open-minded and another to ignore how deeply he had offended the Quran. I had underestimated the pressure they feared to encounter from the Islamic community. At the time of the interview there was still a dialogue, now everyone is continuously walking on eggshells.’
Precisely for this reason she became even more determined: ‘In these troubled times dialogue is absolutely indispensable, on all possible levels. So I vented my disappointment to my local Turkish grocer: Why can’t I find a Muslim choir? This proved to be a stroke of luck. He suggested contacting Selim Dogru, a Turkish-Dutch composer who leads the reART World Music Choir. Selim at once agreed to take part in my opera, as did his singers, who all read the manuscript closely. They know exactly what it’s about and consider it an important project.’
The ‘Muslim choir’ enters towards the end of the opera, where the murder of Van Gogh is subtly suggested. De Graaff: ‘An electric guitar solo sets in. Gilbert sings: It’s finished, it’s dead. Theo gets up and leaves the table. Pandemonium breaks loose. Wham! Wham! Wham! The choir belts out: money, race, sex, religion, while Gilbert & George once more stress how kind Muslims are.
In the end we shortly hear Theo’s real voice: So that’s why you love to be surrounded by Muslim people? Then things quieten down, and everyone sings along with the ‘Muslim choir’: Imagine the lives of all the people at this moment in the world, wherever they are. These were George’s last words in the interview. It’s such a powerful and soothing text, but each time I hear it I get goose bumps, for we all know what happened hereafter.*
*Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered by an islam fundamentalist on 2 November 2004
My pre concert talk with Huba de Graaff was streamed live on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L_k7KjQsG8
#HF17 #ChristopherRobson #GilbertGeorge #HollandFestival #HubaDeGraaff #NakedShitSongs #NigelRobson #TheNakedShitPictures #TheoVanGogh
The Lamp – Huba de Graaff writes compelling opera on Srebrenica genocide
Arnout Lems & Helmert Woudenberg (c) Bowie Verschuuren
How to make theatre out of the genocide that took place 25 years ago in Srebrenica, librettist Erik-Ward Geerlings and composer Huba de Graaff wondered. They soon realised that the murder of some 8000 Bosnian Muslims was too wide-ranging. They decided to catch the epic in the personal by zooming in on one single aspect: the homecoming of Colonel Thom Karremans after the fall of the enclave in July 1995.
They centred on the lamp that Serbian general Ratko Mladić presented to the Dutchbat commander just before commencing his mass murder of the Muslim men. The images of the skittish Karremans (‘For my wife?’), who then laughingly toasts with the ruthless murderer, were aired all over the world. They are also shown in The Lamp, a striking title that underlines the everyday banality of this ‘domestic drama’.
Silent prosecutor and witness
For the entire duration of the opera, the table-lamp stands pat in the middle of the stage, in a checkered plastic shopping bag, as a silent prosecutor and witness. Pianist Charlie Bo Meijering, dressed in camouflage pants and wearing a soldier’s cap, carries it onstage at the beginning of the performance and carefully deposits it. Initially, Ratko Mladić (Helmert Woudenberg) also has a silent role. Standing in a corner or leaning on a chair, he watches the awkward conversation between ‘K.’ (the excellent baritone Arnout Lems) and his wife (the no less wonderful mezzo-soprano Esther Kuiper).
Mrs. K. responds to his homecoming with little enthusiasm. What does that lamp mean she wants to know, and where did he get it? I bought it for you, he claims. But she’s seen the television footage and refuses to sleep with him. She bitterly accuses him of lying to Mladić when he said he missed his two children. Isn’t he aware how traumatic it’s been for her that they never had children? – As if I were only thinking of you, he snarls, I was responsible for 300 men. Meijering pounds rattling chords on his piano.
Truncated sentences, rigid melodies
With short, truncated sentences the libretto makes the unbridgeable gap between the couple palpable. K. is completely trapped in the world of his own propriety and rejects any attempt at rapprochement. No, it wasn’t really difficult there and he has not been afraid, it wasn’t all that bad. Neither does he acknowledge that Mladić humiliated him for all the world to see: the general only did his duty, he is a pro.
The music is perfectly tailored to the distressing action. K. and his wife sing rigid, monosyllabic melodies in a slow, drawn-out, tempo. The piano accompaniment is equally ossified and unresponsive, the direction provides a minimum of interaction. The characters mostly sing head-on, with straight faces that do not betray emotion. K. stands legs spread apart, like the tough soldier he imagines himself to be, she messes around with cups and saucers. K.’s voice however jumps uncontrolled to the highest register on the word ‘genocide’.
Bullied like a patsy
Roaring electronic doublings and dissenting voices that regularly pop up under K. create an ominous atmosphere. Sleeping on the couch he has nightmares. Then we see the well-known television footage in which Karremans allows himself to be bullied like a patsy by Mladić, who marches through Srebrenica as a victor, jovially shakes hands with his soldiers. When K. wakes his wife with a scream of fear, he dismisses her concern: he hasn’t heard anyone scream, let alone himself. At such moments Meijering plays sweetly innocent tunes on his piano, nailing us to our seats.
When Mrs. K. disgustedly accuses her husband of cowardice and announces to leave him, Mladić steps forward and fires off a long diatribe against K. He is not a man: he cannot even conceive children and relies on the air support that will never come. K. explodes for an instant. He drags the pianist from behind his instrument, furiously bangs the keys with both his hands and shouts that the Serbs will be ‘blown out of their boots’. Then he collapses, powerless.
Food for thought
Mladić carries on and on, relentlessly summing up all K.’s failures and shortcomings, as if he were now the voice of his conscience. This is somewhat unconvincing, the more so since his text is too long and one-dimensional to hold attention. A male choir, gradually joined by female voices sing an ever louder and dramatic Bosnian lament, while Mladić imperiously walks from the stage and climbs the steps leading into the audience. Just when you think: now it’s finished, he roars: ‘Pull the plug!’ – A dire anti-climax.
After this Mrs. K. comfortingly seats herself next to her husband on the couch: he is safe, nobody blames him for anything, ‘every human being has a right to a weak moment’. Behind them appears footage of idyllic natural beauty and intact houses, accompanied by romantic piano sounds. Then we see a mass execution and the curtain falls.
Apart from Mladić’s endless rant and the maudlin ending, The Lamp is a compelling production that provides much food for thought.
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In 2015 the 20th anniversary of the Srbrenica genocide was commemmorated with an oratorio by Pablo Escande on a libretto by Paul Kapteyn. I wrote about it for Cultuurpers. The premiere was filmed and can be viewed here.
#CharlieBoMeijering #ErikWardGeerlings #EstherKuiper #HelmertWoudenberg #HubaDeGraaff
Huba de Graaff honours Persian poet Forough Farrokhzad: ‘Long live rebels!
Huba de Graaff (Amsterdam, 1959) is one of the most original composers in the Netherlands. In her idiosyncratic music theatre shows, she brings speakers to life (Lautsprecher Arnolt, 2003), explores the common ground between Flemish polyphony and monkey song (Apera, 2013), bases a libretto on the lustful moans of a copulating couple (Pornopera, 2015) or takes a close look at a national trauma (De Lamp, 2020).
In her latest production, the ‘rock performance’ FF: And here I am, a lonely woman, she focuses on the Persian poet and filmmaker Forough Farrokhzad (1935–1967). Due to limited seating capacity, the premiere in Theater Kikker Utrecht has been divided over two evenings: Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 February 2022. As in much of her work, electronics and music go hand in hand in FF. I interviewed De Graaff about her inspiration and musical development.
MUSICAL (GREAT) GRANDFATHER
Huba de Graaff stems from a musical family. Her great grandfather Isaac Mossel (1870–1923) played the cello in the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Concertgebouworkest; her grandfather Cok de Graaff (1904–1988) studied the violin at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. He played the banjo in The Indian Jazz Band of Mossel’s son Hans, and married his daughter Gretel. As a child Huba de Graaff often improvised on the violin with her grandfather: ‘But at that time he was no longer a professional musician, he had switched to photography.’
TAKING APART BALLPOINTS
That Huba de Graaff has her artistry and musicality from no strangers seems obvious. ‘As a child, I was always tinkering – soldering, knitting, carpentry, all kinds of things. In primary school I wrote my first musical, for which I organised the cast and a performance myself. – Pretty much what I still do today.’ Her later love of technology and computers was also instilled at an early age: ‘According to my parents, I could already take a biro apart when I was one and a half years old.’
In the 1970–80s, she played violin, vocals and keyboards in bands like The Dutch, Transister and The Tapes, while simultaneously studying violin at the Sweelinck Conservatoire. ‘Well, that study didn’t amount to much’, she says. I was in the first batch of the improvisation course, but they didn’t have a violin teacher yet… I actually learned everything from the Transister boys in the field of solfeggio, stage presentation, studio work and suchlike. Especially from their front man Robert Jan Stips, one of the nicest Dutch pop musicians I know.’
While she was raising hell on stage, dressed in miniskirt and a reddish wig, she studied electronic music at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht and composition at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. One of her teachers was Dick Raaijmakers, the godfather of electronic music in the Netherlands. But the self–willed, freedom–loving Huba de Graaff clashed with Raaijmakers’ somewhat dogmatic approach.
EVERYTHING AT ONCE
‘While I wanted to do everything at once, he kept trying to dissuade me from this. You had to come to the core: bare, stripped down. This is this and that is that: the Method. More than Louis Andriessen, he embodied what became known as ‘The Hague School’. In his approach to music Raaijmakers was quite strict and Calvinistic. Above all, you shouldn’t mix everything up. But I wanted both rotating speakers, and loud singing in a tin dress, and piezo grids, and computer violin, and mini–televisions, and a PA above the audience, and whee-whoo carts driving around.’
De Graaff is referring here to her ground–breaking performance/installation Corenicken from 1991. In it, those present are treated to an immense range of sounds, from a dizzying array of sources arranged above, below and around them. In the centre, 32 miniature television screens emit animated patterns, while scattering around different voices of the composition through their speakers. Dressed in her ‘Japon Fuzz’, a tin dress fitted with electronics that react to her movements, De Graaff generates alienating fuzz and feedback sounds. For Corenicken she developed her own software. ‘Those computers weren’t all too complex, 8–bits, 6502 machine language, that sort of thing,’ she says carelessly.
MOVING SOUND
A striking constant in her work is the combination of electronics and the human voice. Where does this fascination come from? ‘Our hearing is primarily focused on perceiving the Other: another voice.’ She gives an example: ‘Sometimes you are listening to music, becoming completely absorbed in another world; transcending the earthly babble. But then suddenly someone starts singing – and at once you are distracted.’
‘So when I started working with moving sound, I realised that it would have the greatest effect in combination with voice. Of course, the shrill sounds of a whee-whoo train passing by attract attention. But a singing choir, all of its speaker heads pointing at you and singing: ‘crawl into me, come into me, come into us’ (Lautsprecher Arnolt) works better. Then, as a listener, you register the movement of the sound more clearly.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X627zz1gTcg
‘In the 70s and 80s, when I was studying sonology, electronic music mainly came out of loudspeakers. So you were sitting in a concert hall listening to a bunch of speakers on a stage. So static and so non–musical! But all sounds produced by humans or animals originate from movement. Music – organised sound to quote Varèse – arises from the expression of a physical emotion. From a gesture, a movement. That’s why I thought: if those loudspeakers could also move while “singing”, then you would again arrive at a “natural” sound.’
‘Moreover, I often find opera singing terribly ugly. That is why I started experimenting with other forms of using the voice. In Pornopera, I investigated where our “classical” way of singing comes from, while Apera zooms in on the question of why everyone is talking so much, instead of singing.’
EXPERIMENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=cgUdJt-uyUs
In her performances, De Graaff deals with the most diverse themes, both topical and controversial. In The Death of Poppaea (2006) and Pulchalchiajev (2019), for example, she addresses the pitfalls of social media. In The Naked Shit Songs, based on a transcribed interview of Theo van Gogh with the artists Gilbert & George (2017), she zooms in on the discomfort we experience when someone vents their politically incorrect opinions. How does she conceive her compositions?
‘Usually, my ideas spring from the need to hear something specific, to try something out, the need for a new experiment. These experiments often have a conceptual and social starting point. In one of my last productions, De Lamp (The Lamp) I tried to compose as “Dutch” and nationalistic as possible. This resulted in dreadful harmonies and super–dry music. The challenge for me then was: how long would I be able to keep this up?’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=d1R4HPxdusw&feature=emb_logo
‘In Pulchalchiajev, about a successful influencer who loses her footing when she is accused of deception and culpable homicide, I experimented with instability. No fixed tones, no fixed assumptions, no truths, but a world full of lies.’ To be socially committed is a matter of course for De Graaff: ‘How could it be otherwise? I live and compose in the here and now, and relate to the world, as I think any artist should.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8xrYA238vs&feature=emb_imp_woyt
FOROUGH FARROKHZAD: REBEL WITH A CAUSE
Her new production FF: And here I am, a lonely woman, a tribute to the Persian artist Forough Farrokhzad, has a personal component. De Graaff feels an affinity with the liberated poet, filmmaker and feminist whose work was long banned in Iran, and is still viewed with suspicion by the current regime: ‘As a person, she is a symbol of the independent (Iranian) woman: a rebel, someone who breaks taboos and frees herself from her traditional role.’
Because of her self–confident attitude to life and her unwavering championship of the female voice, Farrokhzad led a rather isolated existence. Just as Huba de Graaff operates somewhat in the margins of Dutch music life with her provocative productions.
She discovered Farrokhzad through The Naked Shit Songs. ‘For this opera I had managed to engage Selim Doğru’s Re–Art World Music Choir. Imra Dinçer was one of the singers, and afterwards she approached me for a collaborative project.’
‘I hardly knew Dinçer, but decided to be open-minded and see where this would lead us. I visited her performance Ulrike about Ulrike Meinhof and then we started talking about what we would like to make together. It was soon clear: something about strong women. Then Dinçer came along with a book of poetry by Forough Farrokhzad, in which she had written a nice dedication:
“From Imra to Huba on behalf of all women daring to sin at least once in their lifetime.
Long live rebels!”
‘I was like: Forough who?? As so many Western-bubble people, I had never heard of this Persian poet. Yet she turned out to be insanely famous. Not so much in our parts, but worldwide she is still the “Iranian equivalent of a rock star” as the Washington Post once wrote.’
De Graaff recognizes herself in Farrokhzad and quotes approvingly from an interview:
“Of course we compose poetry out of personal need, an irresistible calling… but what happens after we commit our poems to the page? We must be judged and feel that we have made a difference, made a connection, and that we are responsible. […] In this field, an artist’s work is private and individualistic. How long can he or she survive this isolation, conversing only with the door and the four walls? […] The only way to survive is that one should reach such a state of detachment and maturity that he or she can become both a builder of and a mouthpiece for her world, both an observer and a judge.”
Forough FarrokhzadLIFE STOPS AT PREGNANCY
As a starting point for FF, De Graaff and Dinçer chose the poem Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season, published posthumously in 1965. It is one of Farrokhzad’s longest and most reflective poems: ‘In it, a woman’s life stops the moment she becomes pregnant. At least, that’s how I interpret it, but at every rehearsal we end up discussing the interpretation. The subtitle of our show, “And here I am / A lonely woman”, quotes two verses from this poem.’
How did De Graaff translate Farrokhzad’s poetry into music? ‘Of course, this has been done many times before, but usually the music is rather Persian-oriented. And then a voice starts declaiming in Farsi… I wanted her poems to appeal to a Western audience as well, so I was inspired by protest songs. Take her poem Sin, which we will play as an encore – this is inspired by The People United will never be defeated, in the version by my wonderful teacher Fredric Rzewski.’
That ties in nicely with the idea of a rock performance, in which De Graaff herself signs for electric violin and noise: ‘It is a kind of retro–experience for me: back to my pop–band past. I suddenly felt a strong urge to make LIVE music once again, in a carefree way. I am on stage with great musicians and I love electronic sounds and amplified instruments.’
UNWANTED AND UNHEARD
What can we expect musically? ‘Fine, catchy stuff that takes you through a rather unfathomable poem. I use many sound samples and images from her award-winning documentary The House is Black, about a group of outcasts in a leper colony. Afterwards, we play the film in full, because to me, FF is also about being open to the invisible, the excluded, the unheard. For me that includes noise, the frayed edges, the pimples and the “unwanted” by-noises. Perfection is boring and inhumane!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_rMOBMhDQA
‘All in all, it will be a forty–minute epic pop–ballad, culminating in a gigantic electronic rock apotheosis. Topped off with an encore of the world-famous and infamous poem Sin, which celebrates female sexuality, in the guise of a protest song. We hope everyone will sing along at the top of their lungs!’
Though her regular partners Erik-Ward Geerlings (director/librettist) and Marien Jongewaard (actor) helped realize FF, in fact the whole production is now carried by women. ‘It’s an all–female cast indeed. But I never wanted to present myself as a WOMAN composer. What the fuck. I’m just a woman and these musicians are TOP.’
MALE GAZE
After the interview however, she sends me an e-mail about how she has struggled with her womanhood. ‘My new performance is partly about feminism. It is a subject that I have never dared or wanted to tackle until now. I am not a victim! But now that I am getting older, I notice how important it is to name injustice. Not so much for myself, but for all the younger women of today. If only life were fair for all women and girls around the globe.’
‘I have always done what I wanted. At least I was convinced I had, but people sometimes said: “women can’t compose”. In the backward, ultra–patriarchal Dutch society I naturally looked for ways to survive. So I cheerfully declared: OK, so women can’t compose, then I’ll do something completely different, with experiments and electronics…! Maybe, if I had not been pushed aside by that male gaze, I would have become a different type of composer.’
FEMALE PERSPECTIVE
‘Yes, I make music that creates a different perspective on a text, on a poem. And always: outside the established disciplines, boxes and conventions. I turn an interview into an opera, singing monkeys into a performance, I transform city sounds into literature, I let the GPS in the car sing the direction. Experimenting with the conversion of one ‘form’ into another, in order to arrive at something new. From an open mind, amazement, and with cheerful and loving attention to every sound detail.’
‘Forough Farrokhzad still inspires countless girls and young women who feel the need to break away from imposed rules, standards and morals. She was a paragon of rebellion and zest for life. Determined to study, not letting herself be limited by conservative husbands and/or surroundings. She is a heroine for all those girls who fight for their own lives. Rebel-girls who quarrel with their parents, teachers, the state, politicians. If only we had more of these.’
She once more quotes Forough:“If my poems have an aspect of femininity, it is of course quite natural. After all, fortunately I am a woman.”
Liked my interview? A donation, however small, is welcome through PayPal (friends option avoids charges), or by transferring money to my bank account: T. Derks, Amsterdam, NL82 INGB 0004 2616 94. Many thanks!
#ForoughFarrokhzad #GilbertGeorge #HubaDeGraaff #LetUsBelieveInTheBeginningOfTheColdSeason #TheHouseIsBlack
Expositie Electrina’s: Pleintheater eert vrouwelijke muziekpioniers
Donderdagavond 16 oktober opende de door Huba de Graaff gecureerde expositie Electrina's in het Pleintheater in Amsterdam. De immer avontuurlijke en onvermoeibare De Graaff zocht en vond een flink aantal werkschetsen van Nederlandse vrouwen die vanaf de jaren 1970 pionierden op het gebied van elektronische muziek. […]
Thea Derks
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