An Andriessen Glossary

Boogie-woogie
A Jazz piano style, which developed from ragtime and became popular in the 1920s and 30s. Important boogie-woogie pianists include Jimmy Yancey, Pine Top Smith, Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammions. Andriessen came to love Boogie-woogie during his teenage years, and has incorporated the style into several compositions, including On Jimmy Yancey (1973) and De Stijl. Its presence in the latter work is also explained by Piet Mondriaan's love of boogie-woogie: he used the term in the titles of his paintings, such as Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1947) and Victory Boogie-Woogie (1944).

Cantus-firmus
A mediaeval composition technique, revived by twentieth-century composers, in which a composition is based upon a fundamental melody (usually plainchant in mediaeval music, but sometimes popular songs) which is present in very long note values. The rest of the composition is then an elaboration around these sustained notes. Andriessen bases Parts 1 & 2 of De Materie on a mediaeval popular song, L'homme armè (The Armed Man).

Canon
The most extreme example of canon in Andriessen's work is found in Hout, where the entire composition is based upon a single line which is heard in a canon in 4 parts at the unison and at a semiquaver's distance. Played at a very fast tempo, the result is a blurred, echoing melody.

Hocket
Another mediaeval technique, in which a melody is split between two voices, so that one sings while the other is silent and vice-versa. Andriessen uses this technique in Hoketus ('Hocket'; 1976). Here it is part of the long melody – hocketed between the two identical ensembles – that closes the piece. Andriessen also hockets chords between groups of instruments, normally placed some distance apart to heighten the effect.

top of page

Metric modulation
Sometimes called 'tempo modulation', this is a technique particularly associated with American composer Elliot Carter, but in fact employed by many contemporary composers. It is a device for effecting a smooth transition between different tempi.

In De Snelheid, Andriessen alternates between two different types of metric modulation. Because of the way he emphasizes the first beat of the bar (either with an accent, or because melody notes change on that beat) we are aware of the larger 'beats' created by the barlines, in addition to the faster ticking of the woodblocks' semiquavers (see Interlocking speeds, below). The first gear change happens because the duration of the bar remains the same, but instead of having five semiquavers in it, it now has six (which, obviously, will be faster in the ratio 5:6).

This is quite a straightforward relationship. Later in the piece, Andriessen relates tempi through subdivisions of bars, for example at fig 14+5:

Here, a dotted quaver in the new tempo is the same duration as a quaver in the previous tempo.

The second type of metric modulation happens when the semiquaver pulse remains the same, but the bar lengths contract. Again, because of the way these are emphasized, the music sounds as if it has speeded up:

You can see a diagram showing how the various modulations work in De Snelheid here.


Proportion
Important to Andriessen is the idea of musical structures based on carefully calculated proportions, with the length of particular sections having a mathematical relationship. A striking example is his use of Mondriaan's painting 'Composition with red, yellow and blue, 1927' to generate the structure for De Stijl. Here the relative proportions of the five colours (including black and white) to the whole are translated into the time attributed to the five instrumental groups in the ensemble.

Like many composers from Bach to Bartók, Andriessen also makes frequent use of the Golden Ratio (1:1.618) as a structural device.

Another example of Andriessen's use of proportion is in the Trilogie van de Laatste Dag ('Trilogy of the Last Day'; 1996-7) where the ratio 3:2 governs several aspects of the work, from the tempo canon at the start of the first movement to the relationship between the duration of the three movements, which is 9:6:4.

top of page

Repetition
As in the minimal compositions of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, Andriessen has made use of structures made from repeated patterns. Hoketus is made from bars which may be repeated many times before moving on to the next. Workers Union has similar repeated bars, where the music sounds like it's stuck in the groove of a vinyl record:
Although Andriessen's more recent music still uses repetition, the patterns are less frequently contained within repeated bars, but rather are fully notated.

Interlocking speeds
The distinctive rhythmic character De Tijd is based upon layers of different musical material notated in such a way that they give the impression of several different speeds being present simultaneously. Using relatively simple notation, one can suggest the presence of different, but interlocking tempi.
(See also Metric modulation, above)

Shadow melody
The 'negative melodies' that are created when the notes of a chord are released one by one. The listener is subtly aware of the absence of each note. Used in several works, notably De Tijd and Dubbelspoor.

Unison
Andriessen is very fond of unison, both in terms of rhythm – where all the instruments play the same rhythmic pattern (Workers Union) and of pitch (De Stijl – opening; Vokslied).


top of page