4 Wartime Impressions
€128.00
Pieter Corten about Wartime Impressions: The work was created in the period with the attacks on Brussels and Nice. These were the first times for me that terrorism hit so close to home, which really shocked me.
However, I am not an anxious person at all, so the attacks have not made me any more cautious than I was before. But I recognized the impact those events had on society and thought: time to create a composition around them.
The piece describes 4 different impressions associated with war. The emphasis is on the word impression: as a privileged, war-virgin Westerner you cannot claim that you can fully understand a fact such as war.
The first impression 'Prelude‘'‘ describes the period preceding the outbreak of war. For me, the music expresses a lot of doubt and little guidance. Music has different parameters: pitch, tone duration, pitch strength and my personal favorite: timbre. You can color that timbre in different ways: with the instruments you use and the harmonies you sound. The work is built entirely on this last parameter. By using a constant stream of notes, the music gets a static character and I shift the attention from 'where is it going' to 'what am I hearing in the moment'. It never hurts to reflect on what is happening in the moment instead of speculating how a situation will unfold.
The second impression 'Industry' represents the war machine with its constant, unstoppable drive. In this part I divide the orchestra into different layers that conflict with each other in a very regular manner. You get a question and answer game that I see as a discussion. One makes a statement, the other does the same in response. However, the discussion has not yet reached a resolution.
The third impression 'Ode to Beauty' is what the title suggests: an ode to beauty. In difficult periods, people go back to what is beautiful to them. That is why I wrote this part in a more traditional way: with the harmonies that sound 'beautiful' from nature. But I also wanted the music to be expressive and the dissonant is the most expressive note in a chord, hence the sometimes somewhat strange notes in the harmonies. The challenge of this part is to make the music sound calm with a challenging sheet in front of you.
The fourth and final impression 'Fugueitives and Apotheosis' is definitely not a spelling mistake. It is a play on words on 'fugue' and 'fugitives', the refugees that arise in conflict areas. The movement begins with a fugue, a strict musical form, in which you hear themes from the previous three movements. The music builds up layer by layer until you reach the apotheosis: the outbreak of war.
Maybe one day I will be able to make a fifth impression of 'peace', but for now it looks like we will have to wait a little longer for that...
Listening example
Highlights from Wartime Impressions:
Playing time of individual parts
I Prelude: 3′
II Industry: 2'20”
III Ode to Beauty: 4'40”
IV Fugueitives and Apotheosis: 3'20”
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English 
Dutch
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