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BAU (1969/70),
for chamber orchestra, was written for the original ASKO Orchestra, when I was
still its conductor and artistic director. Its
framework
architecture is a multi-layered structure based entirely on the golden section.
The music serves as the articulation of that section. The music therefore is
defined in terms of mass, texture and field, of layers and densities,
of augmentation (towards the 'section') and diminution (away from it). At its most complex, four separate layers are
active simultaneously and the use of clearly distinctive instrumental groups makes it
generally possible to distinguish between these layers.
Complexity and stratification, conflict and
coherence, force and counterforce, individual
and collective, growth and decay - they are all part of a world view that had
gradually
formed within me, and were all desperately seeking an outlet in my music. Or was
it perhaps
the other way round?...
My interest in complexity can be partly explained
by my boundless admiration for
Bach,
for the vitality, richness and complexity of his music. His work has been my
lifelong model where polyphony or the simultaneous
activity of different layers are concerned. But whereas
Bach's main inspiration had religious origins, I prefer Nature to inspire me. One of my
preoccupations with Bach's music is expressed in a definition I drew up
with regard to the dynamics of a fugue: a network of voices, each of which is fighting
for maximum individuality in a system that uses this very quest to achieve
optimal coherence. This paradox generates a particular version of
'life', and the
creation of life seems to me music's main objective. Polyphony is almost a conditio sine qua non in musical dialectics, and in several of my works I tried to breathe new life into that concept.
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