Lunchtime concert: Brass Music of the Spheres

How does the newest generation of composers and musicians view the work of the pioneers of postwar European music? In four free lunch concerts held in the passageway of the Rijksmuseum, students from the Royal Conservatoire will play work inspired by compositions from two prominent composers featured in this year’s festival, Poul Ruders and Olga Neuwirth.

 The music of Danish composer Poul Ruders is one of extremes – suddenly moving from tranquil, introverted notes to glorious, expressionistic explosions. His Solar Trilogy (1997) for large symphony orchestra, which is being performed during the Holland Festival Proms, is about the birth, life and death of the sun, the source of our existence. A similar theme is central to Brass Music of the Spheres, written by five composition students from the Royal Conservatoire in collaboration with over 20 students from the brass department, under the supervision of composer Martijn Padding. The five-part composition is inspired by the all-embracing nature of the cosmos and the ideas of Kepler and Plato, who described a universal harmony between the heavenly bodies. The musicians are grouped like heavenly bodies in space. They move to and from the centre as if traveling through the cosmos. The frequency of our planet Earth – identified by Pythagoras as the tone G – also plays a special role in this composition.

This performance was earlier announced under the title Keplers Kosmos Harmonie (Kepler’s Cosmic Harmony).

Programme