The Bossche sounds in November are contemporary. Since '93, the city has acted as a sounding board for the contemporary music under festival name November Music. I entered into a conversation with Morris Kliphuis (composer) and lyricist Otto Wichers (Lucky Fonz III), about their musical piece High Dive. The song cycle will premiere at the Verkadefabriek on 11 November, performed by singer Pitou and ensemble stargaze. God knows exactly what it is about. Something about kaleidoscopic immersion, Buddhist philosophy and childlike simplicity. Mysterious festival; maybe that's the secret behind almost 30 years of success.
Mix of modern and classic
The international music festival does broad programming. You will hear 'new' things like creatively through-composed classical music, contemporary avant garde pop music and new world music. A bit like Free Sounds. Getting such a 'special production' off the ground financially is therefore no cakewalk, programmer Bert Palinckx reported to VPRO.
New music, according to Wichers, has nothing to do with revamping a dusty tradition. "You can have one leg in the here and now, and one in tradition." Classical music builds strongly on the Canon and it takes visionaries to take it into pop music, which is intrinsically ephemeral. The Netherlands has such contemporary composers with a classical background, including Andries van Rossem, Hans Koolmees and Kliphuis.
"The Spotify-generation welcomes all continents and all historical periods. As a composer, you have to be flexible with that," Kliphuis says. Trained with classical canon heroes - daily he obediently studies his scores - his work is equally influenced by pop, singer-songwriters and electronic music. "It's not about a label, it's about the question: how are we going to sell this?" So a thank you to visitors to festivals such as November Music, who thrive on the crumbling walls of genres. This form of pigeonholing gives the 'new musician' an open stage.
Push the envelope
No disdain for the old, but slight rebellion. "The classical world is stately and therefore static," Wichers' words. "In terms of text, more is simply possible. Old librettos on new sound negate the latter. With 15th-century Italian love poetry set to modern virtuoso melodies, you just barely win an Edison. November Music fortunately also fulfils the role of music producer and gives a clear brief: push the envelope. This allowed Wichers to work for High Dive building on traditional poetic techniques, with strict rhyme schemes and a precise metre, but was also okay to "half rhyme a bit". Ditto for Pitou's voice; it sounds like something between special pop and a classical soprano.
These are not competing principles. It is and-and. For the younger generation of listeners, both are part of the imagery. The friendship between Kliphuis and Wichers includes Berghain (the Berlin district where Kliphuis lives) at night, Wagner in the morning. "It's all in our bodies," says Wichers.
Puzzling with Björk and Schubert
High Dive is the baby of a long puzzle process. Bottom-up (lyrics by Lucky Fonz III) and top-down: colouring with instruments, listening to Björk and Ligeti again, calling André de Ridder for the line-up. A lot of groove in, so Mischa Porte (percussion) and Jasja Offermans (bass) had to come and talk. Deconstruct, glue back together and, above all, continue to fascinate. Taking into account that man's attention span is still about eight seconds, that indeed seems appropriate for 'the now'.
The result should sound like a kaleidoscopic sensation, to which the listener surrenders. "Every composer is a little dictator," Kliphuis suggests. With a painting, you can say: it's enough, time for coffee. Music works differently, especially in a festival setting. "You're trying to give people something, excite something, or put them in a kind of bath."
Childishly simple
The festival programme puts High Dive down as an ode to the child, but according to Kliphuis, we shouldn't expect children's songs - although technically it is sometimes childishly simple. "Too simple for the conservatoire. It's about learning to resist habituation. Like the Beginner's Mind from Buddhist philosophy; being a beginner every day and letting go of pretence. "An impossible task," says the composer. But to that simple, free attitude, both makers did fall in love all over again.
And it produced fun themes: trees and the pole star, the desire to disappear, pride, futility, the wisdom of rich human emotional life. You recognise them immediately by the sound and different sound textures, according to Wichers. By the way, there was also something fun with a critter under peeled off bark (how would that be for that critter?), but unfortunately it didn't make it.
Trip
Kliphuis sees colourful, collage-like music in High Dive. "The idea of a starry sky with many little dots superimposed". Wichers associates it with trippy nature videos on YouTube in which you see an accelerated mushroom grow into a fungus. "A trip can also be grim. A child also has dark feelings and is emotionally much more complex than the stereotype," says the lyricist. "You actually sell a child short if you reduce it to a kind of mini Buddha".
The intention is not to fetishise special children, but immersion in a combination of sensations. Ultimately, young creators grow up in a world where synthesisers with strings are not so avant-garde anymore. To keep them there, you have to really shake them up. That's where it's going. How contemporary music will crystallise further in the long term? Nobody knows, including the Verkadefabriek. It's a bit too early for that. "Tell Morris I love him," Wichers quips before I meet the composer in Berlin. "Beethoven is long dead, but Kliphuis is still alive."
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