Erik Voermans (1958) is one of those people who writes down what you think yourself, but would never air publicly. The music editor of The Parool likes to pose as your unsuspecting neighbour boy, looking at the music world with amazement. Take the phenomenon of opera: 'That's like someone with a knife in his taas walking for half an hour singing that he's going to die.' When he is allowed to interview the famous avant-gardist Pierre Boulez, he faithfully mentions how excited he is about this. En passant, he confesses to having pronounced his name as 'Boulée' for years, when it should really be 'Boulèzuh'. Last Thursday, 4 February presented he From Andriessen to Zappa, a collection of 129 articles from the past twenty-five years.
His earthy do-but-just-do-then-you-are-crazy-enough image notwithstanding, Voermans is a man of knowledge. He studied musicology at Utrecht University, where he himself taught contemporary music for four years. Since 1989, he has written for The Parool. When not on the road for the newspaper, he plays guitar or composes at the computer, which has so far yielded four CDs. 'Laudatory reviews available on request,' he writes with typical self-mockery at the back of his book.
In his introduction, the author makes no bones about it: his musical love lies with modernism, which he discovered around the age of 17. His great hero Frank Zappa put him on the trail of innovators such as Stravinsky, Varèse and Webern, and thanks to a boy next door (!) he also learned Karlheinz Stockhausen know and appreciate. He has always remained true to this modernist basic attitude, 'because you cannot stand with your back to your own time and always look back'. He sadly observes how modernism is now on the decline: 'The disdain with which modernist composers are sometimes talked about is an abomination to me.'
Hepie and Hepie
Voermans acknowledges that composers like Berio, Boulez, Xenakis, Carter et al do not present us with easily digestible fare, but neither did Josquin des Prez and Ludwig van Beethoven. 'Those who would rather listen to something more convivial can always pull out that Hepie and Hepie single that has been turned grey.' Instead, it is a plus that composers challenge us to enter new worlds of sound and have new experiences. With approval, he quotes Stockhausen: 'Hearing something you've never heard before. Daring to dream. Letting the mind blow.' This is why living art needs to be supported - just as Beethoven could never have composed his masterpieces without backers.
As a music journalist, by the way, there are advantages to cherishing the music of one's own time, "because living composers are easier to interview than dead ones". There are also disadvantages, because the critic who openly expresses his not too enthusiastic opinion easily makes enemies. For instance, Louis Andriessen cancelled his subscription after an unfavourable criticism, Theo Loevendie seemed to want to punch him in the face after an unfavourable review and 'unfollowed' Michel van der Aa him on Twitter after a lacklustre review of his Violin Concerto.
Many times the dissatisfaction wears off, but sometimes an excess of honesty leads to a permanently disrupted relationship. As, for instance, with Reinbert de Leeuw. Outraged by the publication of his biography he did not only castigate yours truly as an author, but also Voermans, who had ventured to write that De Leeuw had 'tremendously [appointed himself] in all his fuss'.
Sweet as marzipan
Despite such experiences, the passionate publicist does not refrain from airing his - often unvarnished - opinions, a trait I highly appreciate in him. For instance, he recently mentioned Ludovico Einaudi's repetitive, tonal music in the radio programme Plastic still 'sweet as marzipan'. But no matter how underwhelming or meaningless he finds a composer's work, he will always approach it with respect, as evidenced by an interview with the Italian audience favourite included in his volume. Clever how he manages to separate his critical judgment of the music from the composer as a human being. That is not given to everyone.
Together, the more than one hundred interviews, portraits and reviews form one ardent and enthusiastic plea for more complex contemporary music. Voermans does not hide his admiration. Moving is his description of Edgard Varèse, whose radical music makes you fear the worst for humans, but who, in a filmed documentary, speaks "full of quiet fire" and appears to have "sweet hamster cheeks". When the interviewer asks if there has been a separation between audience and music and Varèse snidely ripostes that there never was a marriage, Voermans notes with satisfaction: 'So, that one's seated.'
Having never had the opportunity to meet his hero and teacher Frank Zappa in person, he analyses his music. With great insight, he dissects several pieces, establishing links with Stravinsky's rhythmic approach, Varèse's thinking in blocks of sound, Boulez' instrumentation and Webern's sense of timbre. Zappa's kinship with Varèse is aptly illustrated by a drawing by Paul van der Steen: a Zappa armed with pistol, guitar and synclavier rides horseback on the arched back of his French-American exemplar from exertion.
The other 15 drawings are also particularly raunchy: Louis Andriessen with Igor Stravinsky on the back of a bicycle; Boulez standing on an opera house with Olivier Messiaen at his feet; John Cage sitting at a mushroom-spitting piano, one of which bears clear similarities to Arnold Schoenberg; Stockhausen as a short-legged boy blissfully keeping four helicopters in the air via a PlayStation.
Too bad the masterful illustrations have not been sprinkled through the texts, but have been thrown in a clump at the back. The eye wants something after all, and reading 129 interviews, portraits, reflections and reviews is no mean feat, no matter how well and humorously written they are. In the process, the 656-page book is so tightly bound that, while reading the first 50 pieces, I got cramps in my hands from pushing open the spine.
But no further whining about this. From Andriessen to Zappa is a wonderful collection, which gives a nice time picture of developments in contemporary music. That only two female composers are included, as Voermans himself notes, I take as an invitation. It's about time I compile my many interviews with composing ladies. And go ahead, include two men.
Erik Voermans: From Andriessen to Zappa
Deuss Music
Price €19.99
Dimensions 140 x 220 cm
Hard Cover. Sewn Bound.
650 pages. 18 illustrations in colour.
ISBN 9789 0824 0890 4
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
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