Muziek Centrum Nederland

Jan van de Putte

Composing with light, with images, with frustration, and even with silence. This is what Jan van de Putte, one of the most idiosyncratic composers in the Netherlands, does. In the more than 20 years that he has been active, he has built up a modest, though highly consistent body of works. Consistent in the sense that his work always reaches beyond the boundaries of music, it explores the subconscious, at times it provokes and torments, but it sticks firmly in your mind.

Take for example the moment in Terra when you hear the stamping of giant feet in the organ. Or the demolition in the ‘opera’ for one timpani player Om mij mijzelf met mijn aan mezelf en mezelf en mijn eigen, that goes so far that it leaves the viewer sitting in the deadly quiet pitch-black darkness. Another extreme are the incredible rainbow chords in his Dostoevsky opera Wet Snow.

In other words, van de Putte does not merely compose music, he composes experiences – though from a clear musical angle in which timing is essential. He is a composer who does not make it easy for himself or his listeners, let alone for his performers. But it is worth the effort. And as the carefully directed experiences can never been completely captured in an audio recording, the (too rare) performances of his work always have the character of a one-off, non-repeatable event. One can truly say about van de Putte’s music, more so than about that of any other composer: you should have been there.

Frits van der Waa

Current events and premieres:

Sunday 25 October: Terra
Jan Hage (organ), Tatiana Koleva and Arnold Marinissen (percussion).
Orgelpark, Amsterdam.

Wednesday 11 November: I am her mouth / shall the world go to hell or shall I not have my tea
Gerrie de Vries (mezzo soprano), Matangi String Quartet and Ellen Corver (piano). Giuseppe Frigeni (director). Music theatre company ‘De Helling’.
Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam. 
(Repeated on 13 November in Den Bosch and 20 and 21 November in The Hague).
       
Monday 14 December 2009: Om mij mijzelf met mijn aan mezelf en mezelf en mijn eigen
Arnold Marinissen (timpani solo).
Red Sofa/De Doelen, Rotterdam, 8.15 p.m.

2010
7 December 2010: Uma So Divina Linha
Ensemble REMIX, Barbara Hannigan (soprano)
Casa di Musica, Porto, Portugal
(Repeated on 10 December in Antwerp)

3 characteristic statements by Jan

•    Trying to reach a place in music (and art) that is quite unexpectedly different from the starting-point, but reaching it in such a way that it appears, and is, the same, while constantly being tempted...

•    When composing, continuing so far with something that everything, whatever it might be, becomes music - even when there is nothing physically left that is sounding.

•    Creating chaos (chaos as the only true representation of the human existence) in music (art) requires a greater control of the form than is needed to create order in music (art), and only starts when the latter skill has been mastered.
Chaos requires an extremely refined network of relations within the work of art, whereby the chaos is constantly created at a different level... not an aleatoric chaos in which the observer has to find his own way, but a perceivable chaos whereby the observer is constantly - and too frequently, but very subtly - forced to adjust his own ideas, principles ... and changes a little into a different no-longer-really-knowing human (animal)... and has recovered a little...

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Jan van de Putte [photo: Patricia Werner Leanse]
Jan van de Putte
concise personal portrait

Jan van de Putte’s interests: composing and creating, silence, all facets of (East) Asia, vin naturel ‘sans souffre’ in France, Paris, art that can change the ideas of the observer, and, ... and, ...

Jan van de Putte’s heroes and inspiration: music and theatre/dance (and culture), the Far East and Southeast Asia, popular (puppet and shadow) theatre in Europe, Rihm, Varèse, Debussy, Mahler, Chopin, Cy Twombly, and of course: ... and, ...

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