To his own dismay, Simeon ten Holt became famous as the composer of a single piece: Canto ostinato for four pianos. This composition immediately struck a chord at its world premiere in 1979. It still sounds just about every day somewhere in the world, in all possible line-ups. From 12 to 14 October, the Noord Nederlands Orkest presents a version for symphony orchestra by Anthony Fiumara.
The Noord Nederlands Orkest has a thing for Simeon ten Holt. Twice before, the Canto ostinato performed, in the original version for four pianos. On both occasions, the iconic work stood alongside world premieres of the only two orchestral works Ten Holt composed. In 2014, his only four-tone based Centri-fuga christened. Two years later, the first performance of Une musique blanche, in which different orchestral groups are lined up opposite each other.
Masterpiece of Dutch minimalism
Given the impressive number of edits made over the years from Canto ostinato, it is actually surprising that a version for orchestra did not yet exist. This was also the opinion of Anthony Fiumara, who has previously signed for orchestrations of music by David Bowie and Steve Reich. His orchestral adaptation of Canto ostinato he made in 2016, commissioned by the Residentie Orkest, which premiered it that same year at the Doelen in Rotterdam.
Fiumara is a big fan of Ten Holt, whose Canto ostinato he considers one of the masterpieces of minimalism. 'It is a unique piece. Neither before nor after has anything similar been written,' he said. 'I think it can compete with global masterpieces like Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich or with Koyaanisqatsi By Philip Glass.'
Tonality after the death of tonality
Incidentally, the composer himself did not like being compared to the American minimalists, but this is irrevocably compelling. Not only because of the endlessly repeated motifs, but also because of the tonal tenor of the harmonies and the imploringly meditative atmosphere. In an interview with yours truly, Ten Holt said: 'I got tired of composing at a table, from my head - from the intellect and not from feeling.' Thus, in his own words, he developed a 'tonality after the death of tonality'.
In short, this means that while Ten Holt presents us with recognisable chords, he does not subject them to the hierarchy characteristic of tonal music. Instead of letting certain, tension-filled chords 'dissolve' into relaxing, soothing harmonies, he repeats them endlessly. Thus, they come to stand on their own, as it were, and as a listener you are drawn into a trance-like atmosphere. This probably explains the great popularity of Canto ostinato, which does run at night for people on sleeping mats.
Under the bonnet
But how do you translate this compelling work for four pianos to the various instruments of a symphony orchestra? A straightforward job it was not, Fiumara acknowledges in an interview with de Volkskrant: 'If you look under the bonnet, you can see that Ten Holt has built in a lot of freedoms. The musicians get to decide how many times they repeat a particular movement. There is a main line, but there are also alternatives. The original piece is for four pianos. During a table conversation with four people you can still interrupt each other, but with sixty people you really need a moderator.'
So as an arranger, he did have to tighten the reins a bit more. On his blog, he writes: 'The orchestra is a huge machine with its own laws and behaviour. For that machine, I translated the instructions and freedoms Simeon built into the notation. I divided the orchestra into two halves, which are in constant dialogue with each other - exactly like the pianists in the original.'
Homogeneous but colourful
For Fiumara, that core of the original lies in the homogeneous sound of the four pianos. He compares them to black-and-white photography and the monochrome surfaces of artists like Mark Rothko or Ad Reinhardt. In his orchestration, he wanted to exploit the richer sound palette without losing the original homogeneity from earshot.
He therefore chose a basic sound formed by the strings. This is sparingly supplemented and coloured by woodwinds; only sporadically does he use brass. He also uses percussion only sparingly.
Thus, Fiumara makes audible lines and movements that remained in the background in the piano version. However, this is not done too emphatically, because 'it should sound like Canto was written for orchestra'. And indeed: in its new jacket, the piece is perhaps even more intoxicating than the original.
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