Louis Andriessen: 'I've never found a new sound'

For Theatre of the World, his fifth full-length opera, Louis Andriessen (1939) drew inspiration from the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680). He was the last Renaissance man, someone who could do everything and knew everything. Kircher wrote books full of the most diverse subjects, from the meaning of hieroglyphics to vulcanology and musical instruments. He even designed a cat piano, based on the idea that each cat screams at a different pitch when you tap its tail. After his death, Kircher fell into disrepute as a charlatan.

However, unusable for science, he forms gefundenes Fressen for a composer like Andriessen, who likes to explore the boundaries between reality and fiction. His opera Writing to Vermeer (1999) is based on fictional letters to the Delft painter; Rosa, a Horse Drama (1994) is about the murder of a composer, allegedly part of a conspiracy against music.

At Theatre of the World old Kircher is taken around the world by a seemingly innocent but increasingly satanic boy, along with the Pope. The unlikely journey takes them from Rome to ancient Egypt and from the Tower of Babel to China; witches, a love couple and a Mexican nun cross their path. At the end, Kircher is presented with the bill and his still-beating heart is cut from his disembodied body.

No wonder Andriessen speaks of a "grotesque in nine scenes". He composed Theatre of the World by order of The National Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in co-production with the Holland Festival. The piece premiered in Los Angeles last May. On June 11, it will conduct Reinbert de Leeuw the Asko|Schönberg in its first performance in the Netherlands, at Theatre Carré. I asked Louis Andriessen about the how and why of this opera/grotesque.

Theatre of the World premiered in Los Angeles at Walt Disney Hall, a concert hall. Now it is in an opera theatre. What are the differences?

'The Walt Disney Hall is a great hall, but it's not actually suitable for theatre, so Pierre Audi, the director, couldn't do much there. He had built a sort of little stage above the orchestra, where he let people scurry around a bit. He seemed rather dissatisfied with that himself. Anyway, that does mean that we can only really do what we planned to do here in Amsterdam. We also have more rehearsal time here.

I've worked a lot with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, it's a great orchestra. The musicians love playing my music, I think because it is a peculiar combination of American avant-garde and European rigour. The performance, as always, was excellent. Still, I'm glad we are doing it here with Asko|Schönberg, with I would almost say my 'own' orchestra. They've played pretty much everything of mine that's been loose and stuck. Although it sounded fine in Los Angeles, I noticed at rehearsal that there is quite a big difference in the culture of making music.

Here the approach is more solo, there they are more focused on blending, fusing the different instruments together. The woodwinds in particular tune everything together so beautifully that you no longer hear any difference between flutes, clarinets and oboes. This applies to all symphony orchestras, by the way; with ensemble musicians, it all sounds more differentiated. The band may be a little smaller now, but I get back more of what I want to hear myself.'

Have you adapted the score to reduce the symphony orchestra to an ensemble?

'No, it's more about the number of strings and the fact that there are only two horns. I initially wrote the notes for Los Angeles. They actually thought it was too small a line-up: does it really have to be that way? It could have been quite a bit more. Yes, I know that myself! But because it was to be performed here by Asko|Schönberg, I had to consider the possibilities. As you know, in the Netherlands it is Mr Rutte who stipulates that I can only use two horns. So there are not four, but two horns in it; it was the same in America. Only the string corps is smaller now.'

À propos sound: you have already composed an incredible amount, did you search for new sounds, a new sound world, for this opera?

'You have a romantic conception of composing, I believe. Which I appreciate, by the way. But sounds, that's more something for pop musicians. I have never found a new sound, that concept has little meaning to me. What I do is look for harmonies, melodies, the musical idea. Instrumentation only to a certain extent, actually I think that's the outside of music. What that looks like is simply a matter of letting your experience speak for itself. And: what are my wishes? That's very important: how do I find a music that doesn't exist yet? But that's about language, not sound.'

Kircher lived in the 17th century and also wrote about music. Does your language tie in with that period, his own writings?   

'Well, what I think is important about that period - whether it's the 14th, 15^e, 16^e, or 17^e century - I already have some understanding of that. I also went through my great loves there, for example in a long relationship with Gesualdo, not to mention Bach. And a lot of others! Take Scarlatti, whom I still play every day. Anyway, I could go on and on, but that's the ground you work on. That's where you have to take it from. How you compose, what chords you like.

Then you quickly end up with Olivier Messiaen and others from the twentieth century. After all, the triad is nice, but so much has already been done with it! Although I have never completely avoided it, by the way. But the connections between those chords are much more complicated than the chords themselves. Then you get something like voicing. That's something that every composer - at least every composer who interests me - is enormously concerned with.

If you give an upper voice a certain voicing, it only works if you also have a good voicing in the bass. That sounds old-fashioned, but not if you have modern six-part chords. Then it suddenly becomes Messiaen-like and a lot of other composers show their faces.

I didn't use anything from Kircher's own theories on music. Certainly not the cat piano, which I find a very unsympathetic instrument, even despicable. I did use an old Dutch tune, which many older people will recognise as Hannes walks on clogs. That appears in various forms in opera, as a kind of twelve-tone sequence. I have now internalised music history, it's a kind of attitude you have towards what's going around in your head.

When listening through at rehearsals with guys who have incredibly good ears, like Peter Biloen, the assistant conductor, and Jan-Paul Grijpink, the rehearsal director, they constantly turn out to recognise things that I didn't even notice myself. They know my opera inside out, much better than I do myself. Then ask: isn't this actually that and that? And then it turns out that a certain tutti in the orchestra - a very evil tutti - is dealing with a lovely song of something I have long forgotten. Those are going to work on each other. That's the process you spend 99 per cent of the time doing. What's coming is something that's already there. I can't explain it any better.'

You found a book by Kircher in your father's bookcase. What fascinated you so much that you made an opera about him?

'It was a first edition of a book about China from 1676, a beautiful edition of which only the cover was missing. I thought it was phenomenal, I spent a lot of time looking at it, especially at those prints. That book was the great impetus for creating this opera. Kircher fascinated me because he passed for a scientist, which of course he was. A man who had seen a chance to know almost everything you could know in those days. He conducted correspondences with Leibnitz, Descartes, you name all those greats. He also made inventions himself, you can look all that up.

But the problem with Kircher was that he made all kinds of things up. For instance, he had a puppet drawn, but in the process influenced the artists a little, I imagine: add this or that. This of course makes him a problematic figure for science: you cannot know whether what he writes was known at the time, or made up by him. For an artist he is much more interesting, because it allows you to rücksichtslos compose your own libretto.'

Yet not you, but Helmut Krausser wrote the libretto.

'To be honest, I just got a bit panicky at one point. I had already started working on my own libretto, but around that time two new, thick biographies appeared. While we already know so much about the man. There are even silly little museums dedicated to him, including one in Los Angeles. Then I got the idea to ask the German writer Helmut Krausser, whom I admire, for the libretto. He suggested all kinds of interesting ideas and used some of mine. Like the little boy who knocks on Kircher's door because he wants to know everything. Also the three witches come from me.'

American critics were enthusiastic about the music, but found the libretto too complex. For instance, what is the relevance of the three witches, the nun and the love couple?

'Every libretto has its pros and cons, it is very difficult to give a grade to it. While sifting through, I did come across phrases that give me a thrill and others that repulse me, but that is true of any libretto. I am very happy with Krausser's text and the structure of nine scenes he came up with.

In his view, that little boy soon turns out to be the devil and became a leading role, while I had thought of a supporting role. For practical reasons, it is now sung by a soprano. Because halfway through the production, such a part has to be taken over by another boy and besides, you need reserves, because suppose one of them drops out. And where can you find four good boy sopranos?

Indeed, those witches don't have much to do with the story. I thought there were too few women in it and had always wanted to write a piece for three sopranos and ensemble. That is also why Sor Juana Inès de la Cruz is in it, a Mexican nun and scientist who corresponded with Kircher and whom we perform as his platonic lover. So I was able to write some beautiful melodies for Cristina Zavalloni.

The love pair was Krausser's idea. He only mentions them He and She and there are no obvious reasons for their presence either. Except that I picture them as a young couple making love outside, with Rome immediately coming to mind. Then I am also back to myself, because for a while I studied with Luciano Berio and Italy was my second home. I thought it was an incredibly good idea. Helmut had also written a moldy kind of pop text, ideal for a song. That then immediately became the song everyone likes best.'

Kircher was a fantasist. As a composer, you also make up all sorts of things. Do you associate with him?  

'Some people in your field said: of course it's about him, because they both turned 76. That is the biggest bullshit I have ever heard in my life. With Kircher himself, I don't feel related. I did, however, bring up that 12-year-old boy. Knocking at his door in the Vatican, shrugging his shoulders and saying: I want to know everything! That little boy/devil is essentially me.

I didn't want to do well at Jesuit school either and was kicked out by the fathers, much to my parents' dismay. They immediately raced - on two bicycles, that was how it went in the early 1950s - to that school. That was a terrible day for me, but once I was transferred to another school, I didn't care much anymore. In fact, the fact that the Jesuits expelled me from school because I was always messing around fills me with some pride now. I think back on that with a certain devilish pleasure. ‘

Also read the review By film critic Helen Westerik and the discussion By theatre critic Maarten Baanders