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Born in 1930 in Amsterdam, he worked as a professional
jazz musician for more than 15 years. Before he began devoting himself
mainly to composing new art music in the late 1960s, he performed at all
the most important jazz festivals in Europe, playing soprano and alto
saxophone as well as leading a combo and big bands. Today he is one of the
Netherlands1 most well-known composers, winner of many awards and guest of
renowned contemporary music festivals. His chamber opera Gassir (1990) was
premiered in Boston, while the opera Esmée was performed in Amsterdam,
Berlin and Bielefeld. His musical fairy-tale The Nightingale has achieved
international recognition.
Loevendie belongs more to the French and Russian tradition in contemporary
music (Debussy, Ravel, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky) than to that of Darmstadt
serialism. From the very beginning he developed a recognisable, uniform
style, in which new art music (sharp ostinato sound patches as in The
Nightingale), combines in dynamic synthesis with influences from jazz (Strides,
1976 and Laps, 1995), improvisation (Bons, 1991), non-European music (Six
Turkish Folkpoems, 1977) and stylistic citations (e. g. the operas Naima,
1985 and Esmée).
For Loevendie music means above all communication or rather
communicativeness, which is linked with his jazz and improvisational
experience. That conviction is the basis of clearly constructed and
intuitively understood forms that he creates. Rhythm and melody are
decisive elements in his music; monodic melodies are masterfully perfected
and ultimately resolved in richly ornamented full sounds (heterophonia).
The Otechnique of arches1 that he began developing with the orchestral
work Flexio (Koussevitsky Prize in 1984), based on melodic forms whose
intervals can be expanded or contracted according to need when their
direction (a characteristic Oarch1) is continually maintained.
The impact of Bach1s organ fugues, which Loevendie listened to in his
childhood and which he immediately began to imitate, remains essential for
his works. The influence of Bach is evident in numerous canons (from the
fanfare of horns and choruses in Noima to the miniature music album
Roncanon, 1994), and in the complex combinations of rhythm and melodic
Omodels1 of various length in Six Turkish Folkpoems or the striated Flexio,
which applies various layers of sound, each with its own movement and
tonal colour, creating constantly changing acoustic levels.
In addition to operas, chamber music was also an important part of
Loevendie1s work in the 1990s. During that period he composed such works
as Cycles (1992), Lerchen-Trio (dedicated to the memory of Olivier
Messiaen, 1992), as well as the piano trio Ackermusik, which was composed
for the Hitzacker Summer Music Days in 1997.
Since 1970 Theo Loevendie has been teaching composition at the
Conservatory in Amsterdam.
Hella Merlkert
Selected works: Confluxus for jazz and symphony
orchestra (1966), tre Pezzi for three clarinets (1968), Scaramuccia for
clarinet and orchestra (1969), Ten Easy Sketches for clarinet and piano
(1970), Music for bass clarinet and piano (1971), Aulus for one or more
wind instruments and/or strings (1972), Two Trios for small percussion
(1973), Prelude for six percussionists (1974), Timbo for six
percussionists (1974), Incantation for bass clarinet and orchestra (1975),
Orbits for solo horn, four obbligato horns and orchestra (1976), Strides
for piano (1976), Flexio for orchestra (1979), Music for flute and piano
(1979), Voor Jan, Piet en Klaas for two pianos, eight hands (1979), Nonet
(1980), Venus and Adonis Suite for instrumental ensemble (1981), De
Nachtegaal, opera (1981), Naima, opera (1985), Plus One for flute, bass
clarinet piano (1988), Gassir, the Hero, chamber opera (1990), Bons for
improvising ensemble (1991), Drones for violin and piano (1991),
Lerchen-Trio (1992), Esmeé, opera (19871994), Laps for chamber ensemble
(1995), Que Pasa en la Call? for four tapes (1996), Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra (1995/96), Vueltas for string orchestra (1997), Concerto for
Violin and Orchestra (1999), Johnny&Jones, opera (2001), Concerto for
Clarinet and Orchestra (2002), Flute Concerto OPer quanti? 31 (2002).
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