Andriessen’s De Staat

With De Staat (1976), Louis Andriessen composed music for eternity. This highly personal mix of Stravinsky, American minimal, European avant-garde and jazz caused a shockwave in the international music world. Asko|Schönberg presents this politically charged work alongside a brand new work by Oscar Bettison. Bettison studied with Andriessen and is composer in residence at Asko|Schönberg this season. 

Andriessen drew inspiration from minimal music when composing De Staat, but applied minimalism in his utterly unique way. Bettison has written his piece for the same ensemble as De Staat. He sees his work as a ‘nocturnal wonderland’. A group of pianos, harps, and guitars are positioned centre stage, with some musicians changing positions. The singers incite the brass players and invoke the night.

18.00 / Context programme / 17 new reflections on De Staat

Louis Andriessen composed De Staat between 1972 and 1976, with the idea of ​​contributing to the debate about the relationship between music and politics. In 2024 we live in a completely different - political and musical - world than 48 years ago when De Staat was first performed. In an attempt to once again contribute to the debate about the relationship between music and politics and to place De Staat in 2024, Asko|Schönberg, Ensemble Klang, Gaudeamus, Musica Strasbourg and Muziekgebouw have each asked three to five composers to make a reflection at De Staat. A free assignment, anything is allowed! From a completely conceptual, unexecutable idea or a completely new score. Only limitation is that the final reflection fits one page.

Seventeen composers accepted the commission. Some knew Louis Andriessen well, studied with him, others look at De Staat from a different perspective.

Before, after and during the performance of Andriessen's De Staat, the reflections can be seen and heard in various places in the buildings. Some reflections are only shown on paper, others are performed at unexpected moments in different corners of the concert halls.