Simeon ten Holt - Palimpsest

Simeon ten Holt (1923-2012)

Palimpsest : for string septet (1990-1992)

1. Introduction - 00:00
2. Episode - 06:56
3. Changement I - 15:29
4. Episode II - 15:50
5. Changement II - 29:39
6. Interlude - 30:00
7. Changement III - 33:50
8. Episode III - 34:11
9. Episode IV (reprise) - 42:02
10. Changement IV - 48:55
11. Coda - 49:14

Doelen Ensemble

Program note (Dutch): De titel Palimpsest komt uit het Grieks en gaat in de historie terug naar een perkamentrol, die na afkrabbing of onzichtbaarmaking van het oorspronkelijk geschrevene, opnieuw beschreven is. Vaak bleef de originele tekst enigszins leesbaar. Deze laatste eigenschap is in de compositie voor de luisteraar steeds waarneembaar. Ondanks verschillen in toonsoort of karakter blijft de thematiek terug te herleiden tot het beginthema. De eerste en tweede viool introduceren het thema, waarna de compositie door een opeenstapeling tot leven komt. De totale vorm van de compositie is ingedeeld in een aantal episodes die van elkaar gescheiden worden door zogenaamde changementen. Hierin geven de violisten de snelle bewegingspartij als bij een estafette aan elkaar over. Na het tweede changement volgt een Interlude die is te beschouwen als een chromatische en doorgecomponeerde lus, na de vierde episode volgt een coda. - SIMEON TEN HOLT

Simeon ten Holt was a Dutch composer and pianist. His first piano works reveal the influence of his piano and theory teacher the composer Jakob van Domselaer (1890–1960), who had attempted to translate into piano music the ideas of the painter Piet Mondriaan. In 1949 ten Holt went to Paris and studied with Honegger and Milhaud at the Ecole Normale. He returned to Bergen in 1954 and embarked on his own journey as a composer with his 20 Bagatelles for piano. In the 1950s he sought to escape tonality with the simultaneous use of complementary keys in a tritonal relationship, a technique culminating in the Diagonaalmuziek for strings (1958). The Cycle to Madness for piano (1961–1962) forms the transition to a serialistic period, the results of which can be heard in ..A/.TA-LON (1966–1968), a music theatre piece for mezzosoprano and 36 instrumentalists, where both the notes and the self-invented syllables are conceived as if produced by a computer. He worked at the Institute for Sonology at the University of Utrecht (1969–1975) focusing on electronic sound sources, producing several pieces of electronic music. Although still an advocate of structuralism and atonality in the 1970s, Holt also did the groundwork for the return of tonality in his music.
Canto ostinato for one or more keyboard instruments (1976–1979) is his major breakthrough as a composer. It consists of repetitive music in which the performers follow their own route choosing the so-called ‘drift parts’ they prefer. The musicians are given the task of determining the total length and the number of repetitions in any performance. Ever since the première of Canto ostinato ten Holt has continued to create this kind of living musical organism, each performance of which produces new sound combinations.