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Drumming part 1 (Steve Reich, 1971) Hoketus (Louis Andriessen, 1977)

If you thought that Drumming by Steve Reich was a radical piece of early minimal music, than you certainly haven't heard of Hoketus by Louis Andriessen yet. The most famous living Dutch composer of contemporary/ modern classical music even dared to call Drumming a piece of "Roman-Catholic Music", watching an early performance "by those four bearded hippies in flowered shirts" (quoted from the program notes). To get his own pieces performed the way he wanted, just as Steve Reich did, Andriessen assembled his own group. He did it before to get his piece "De Volharding" (Perseverance) from 1972 performed properly: The group "De Volharding" was simply called after the piece itself and still exists today. For the piece "Hoketus", Andriessen needed two groups of 6 musicians each (Pan-pipe, sax, percussion, piano, Fender (Rhodes) and bass guitar) to be positioned on either side of the stage. When the group on the left side plays a note (all at once), the group on the right remains silent. Same goes for the other way. "Hoketus" means something like "hiccup", to get some idea of the concept. As in Drumming, the timing of the musical notes brings an extra dimension to the overall sound. The group "Hoketus" doesn't exist anymore, but the ASKO Ensemble still has some members of the original line-up. The piece is seldom performed, CD recordings were released some years ago by the Ensembles Icebreaker and Bang on a Can-All Stars. Both these versions lasts for about 23 minutes, but similar as in Drumming, which length depends on the amount of repeats, the ASKO Ensemble version lasts 37 minutes. Louis Andriessen was present at this concert and encouraged the visitors to take a seat on the stage on big cushions between the two groups, to get the real experience of this so-called "tennis-match". extra-note: Interesting to read about the stereo effects of "Hoketus" on stage, but chances are the circulating recording is mono (well, mine is). So if one's really interested in that aspect: the real "tennis-match"-experience might turn out a little disappointing when listening to this document.

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