“THE STATE OF DUTCH NEW MUSIC” at Gaudeamus opening 2024

The State of Dutch New Music is being spoken every year at the opening of the prestigious festival Gaudeamus by selected composers, in order to reflect on the state of music, society, current politics and art. This year Calliope Tsoupaki gave the opening speech.

Read the full speech here:

When it comes to music, we usually talk about melody, rhythm, and harmony. Harmony has an allegorical ulterior motive, its meaning reflecting our desire to live in harmony in a harmonious society and world.

But in this talk, I want to refer to the concept of counterpoint.

Counterpoint is a compositional technique that was the only existing technique for ‘composed’ music in the early times of Western polyphony.Counterpoint, literally note-against-note, is the musical system that handles the coexistence of different melodies in a spatially ideal and free sound environment in which valid rules regulate the beauty, plasticity and balance of the whole.In the first year of studying political science, you learn that freedom exists by respecting everyone’s freedom, everyone’s space and right to exist: your freedom ends where the other’s freedom begins.

In an ideal state, we move along with a free, unconstrained social environment. We understand and respect each other and the laws that define and enable our harmonious society. When I think of this, I think of ‘Counterpoint as an image of the ideal state’. Freedom against freedom, in the polyphony of a democratic system.

Inevitably, we are trapped in our society and era. Louis Andriessen had sensed and understood this very well when he decided to compose De Staat (The State). He was, and still is, relevant.

He said, ‘I wrote De Staat as a contribution to the debate over the relationship between music and politics. Many composers see their work as being somehow above social influences. I disagree with that. The way you arrange musical material, the techniques you use and the kind of instruments you write for, are largely determined by your own social background and listening experience, plus the availability of financial support.’

As I reflect on his words, I am inclined to reverse the reasoning and draw the conclusion that choosing to compose is in fact a political decision and act.

In De Staat Louis has chosen to set to music the excerpt from Plato’s The Republic in which he argues that specific sounds, the Lydian and Mixolydian scales, should be banished as being whiny, weepy and inappropriate within his ideal state. Only the Dorian and Phrygian scales were accepted, as they were good for (male) warriors.

In a later period, the same names were used in the church for tonal modes that had nothing to do with those of ancient Greece. I wonder if Louis had that in his mind when he was composing De Staat. Still, I let that question linger in my imagination. What is more beautiful than a question without an answer? Colleague Charles Ives also knew that very well. In art and music, you don’t have to prove anything. A work of art is an open question about beauty, adventure, freedom of expression and unlimited thinking.

To practise and master counterpoint, a composer must have the ability to conceive of the inversion of any thought. In my mind, the fatal inversion immediately arises:

How did Plato get it into his head to express himself this way about music and specifically about musical sounds? He was a philosopher, not a musician. He had written poems when he was young, which he then destroyed, as far as I know.

Louis said: That’s absurd.

I think myself: brilliant. Plato knew that to succeed in politics you have to influence as many people as possible. Art and music hinder political influence, because music asks open questions, because music does not force answers, because music is beyond political reasoning, because music touches us inside and speaks to our souls, moves us, gives us new ways of thinking and feeling. Music as a siren that constantly awakens our inner life.

What would an ideal state look like from a composer’s point of view?

It would be a sonorous state. A state that facilitates and respects the micropolyphony of all citizens. A state that operates a system and regulation of freedom against freedom. All melodies, all lives balance in harmony.

Yet there is also the evil counterpoint, under the name of demagogy.
A demagogic state in which all rules constrict for the sole purpose of domination.
That is the rule of power. A cacophony takes over the balance of note against note, of freedom against freedom. Our sector has been the target of evil subversions in recent years through demagogic actions and utterances in politics. Recently, we have had to observe that the basics of music education, youth orchestras and composition competitions for young people, do not stand a chance in the distribution of public money.

What does a state without music represent?
Who wants to live like that?

As a composer, as a maker, I face the mirror called society and ‘society now.’
What do I see in that mirror?
Inevitably, as artists, we are influenced by society.
I desire a dialogue, an interaction. I call for adventure, for letting go of familiar notions and emotions, for jumping into the unknown sea of music together.
‘If only music could influence the legislation of a state’ Louis Andriessen concluded with a slightly bitter cynicism.
Our position as dedicated servants of an obscure art not established by the standards of the many, has always been marginal.
That is our strength, that is the true nature of our unique social contribution. We are the antidote to commercialism, financial compulsion and materialistic living.
We cannot be placed in a growing music industry market. Our category is not ‘classical, ambient, world …’ but ‘unanswered questions’.

British writer Rachel Cusk, in her recently published book Parade, likened a work of art to a spider’s web hanging at the top of the corner of the room. From afar you see a mess that you can remove with a swipe of the hand. But when you look up close, you discover its immense beauty, complexity and craftsmanship. You can wipe it away, but the next day you will find there are new webs. That is the power of art.

Art as our nature par excellence, which there is simply no way to stop.