Louis Andriessen
De Materie

There was a god, once. In fact, there were many. And there was hope. As on earth, so it was in heaven.

Internal struggles, scandals, and miracles. A telenovela that, if not edifying, was at least reassuring. The unavenged victims of the last two world wars were Faith, Charity, and especially Hope, the last goddess. And post-war classical music has still not recovered from it, wandering through landscapes of ruins and supreme pain, over which icy dawns rise and bloody sunsets fall.

Grandeur, pride, defeat, pity pass through, as ideological constants, these four musical essays of about 25' each, staged by Robert Wilson and premiered in 1989.

“De Materie” is an apology of idealism and of those who are ready to pay the price. In “Hadewijch”, the second part of this musical drama, the soprano seems to count the dead, while tense dissonances sharpen the blade on which social emotions bleed. The indiscretion that the musical architecture of this section reflects the proportions of the Reims cathedral (13th century) confirms the already apparent lines of spiritual search, struggling with the limits of rationality, sketched by the first movement. The predominant presence of the choir, together with the measured repetition of the 144 save instrumental openings of the work, legitimizes the text, and the tone, of insurrection.

Heavily, persistently, offensively and, occasionally, bizarrely percussive, Part I is a slow-motion machine-gunning against musical notions of air and rhythm. Form and instrumentation of part 3, “De Stijl”, which tries to flaunt a metaphysical air, derive from a pictorial composition by Mondrian. Layered in the form of a scherzo, nestled between the two adagios of this contemporary symphony, are elements of highbrow music: structure in passacaglia, music on the notes B-A-C-H, and elements of popular music: boogie-woogie, funk, and a parlor rap that has the same effect as Aunt Clotilde on television in a lamé tracksuit, all engrossed in a 2Pac Shakur text, surprisingly rapping it well. Something finally moves, and it does so by reminding us of the energy of the winds and the boldness of Steve Martland's excellent percussion.
Part IV returns to the funereal atmospheres of Part II: on an elegy of slow chimes unfolds the epic of Marie Curie, her devotion to study, her love for Pierre, and the sense of irremediable loss after his death. This strong passion, like that of the mystical exaltation of “Hadewijch”, finds no counterpart in the monotonous, harsh, fixed music.

These emotions of the heart are perhaps evoked for counterpoint, to show the wound of this time: knowing and not feeling, being able and not wanting, following and not believing. Giving without loving. Creating without hoping. Because now there are no more gods to turn to.