Willem Jeths and his work
About Willem JethsWillem Jeths was born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands in 1959. As a child he received piano and music theory lessons, and from 1980-1982 he studied music education at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam.
In 1982 Jeths made composition his primary course of study, initially under the tutelage of Hans Kox and, two years later, under Tristan Keuris, Kox’s successor as professor of composition at the Utrecht Conservatory. Upon graduating in 1988 the jury unanimously awarded him the Prize for composition. Additionally Jeths studied musicology at the University of Amsterdam between 1983 and 1991. He completed his studies there with a doctoral dissertation on the composer Elisabeth Kuyper (1877-1953) which was included in the book “Zes vrouwelijke componisten” (Six women composers) published by the Walburg Press, Zutphen 1991.
Willem Jeths has received international recognition for several of his compositions. In 1990 Novelette was selected for the ISCM World Music Days in Oslo, and in 1991 he was awarded an honorary award by the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Wettbewerb in Dresden (Germany) für Streichquartettkompositionen for his first string quartet Arcate (1990). The violin concerto Glenz (1993) and the first Piano Concerto (1994) were awarded second and third prize, respectively, in the Wiener Internationaler Kompositionswettbewerb in 1996. In May 2000 a three-day 'Willem Jeths Festival' was held in Rotterdam. Jeths' compositions were presented alongside works by composers who have inspired him, such as Rihm, Ligeti and Keuris.
In 2004 Willem Jeths was composer-in-residence of the Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra) in Arnhem. Three works for orchestra, chamber music and a new composition, Seanchai were performed. In 2004-2005 Willem Jeths was also composer-in-residence of the Brabants Orkest in Eindhoven. His new Clarinet Concerto - yellow darkness was premiered by this orchestra and the young clarinettist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer in April 2005. For 2005 the newly founded orchestra Holland Symfonia requested Jeths to compose Ombre Cinesi for the opening of the restored Philharmonie in Haarlem.
In 2005-2006 Jeths was composer-in-residence with De Doelen in Rotterdam where Meme, a double-concerto for two violas and ensemble, was premiered by the Schoenberg Ensemble. A year later Kees Vlaardingerbroek, artistic director of the Zaterdag Matinee, asked Jeths to rearrange Meme for chamber orchestra. In 2008 Meme was selected for the Toonzetters as one of the best new Dutch compositions of the year 2007. The cd Yellow Darkness, released in November 2007, received the highest possible rating from the Dutch music magazine Luister. For the season 2009-2010, the Zaterdag Matinee has commissioned Jeths for a new violinconcerto. The Dutch violinist Janine Janssen will perform during her Kamermuziekfestival Utrecht Jeths' new composition for violin-solo.
Jeths' compositions are regularly performed abroad: A bout de souffle in Brussels, Paris and Berlin (1993); Flux/Reflux in Toronto (2000), Berlin (2001), Jekaterinenburg (2002), Oslo (2002); Bella Figura in Sydney (2001) and USA (2005); Bandoneon Concerto in Norway (2001) and France (2002); Chiasmos in Germany (2001) and Australia (2008); ...Un vago ricordo... in Italy (2004): Intus trepidare in London, New York, Australia and New Zealand (2005); Chiasoscuro in India and Italy (2007); Piano Concerto in Russia (2008); Seanchai in Prague (2006); Clarinet Concerto - yellow darkness in China (2007); Fas/Nefas in Switserland (2008).
Since 2003 Willem Jeths was professor in composition at the Fontys Conservatory in Tilburg. Currently he is professor in composition at the Conservatory of Amsterdam.
Instrumental colouring occupies a central place in Jeths’ works. The composer is continually in search of new sound potential within traditional instrumental genres such as symphony orchestra and string quartet, and as a result is inclined to add foreign - at times extraordinary - sounds such as gamelan (TIM/BA) and breaking wood (Glenz), or unusual instruments such as overtone tubes (Fas/Nefas). Expanded sound possibilities often lead to new playing techniques. Re-tuning of the strings, for instance, in Glenz and striking the piano strings with wooden sticks in Fas/Nefas are but two examples of Jeths’ resolve to extend the limits of traditional idioms.
The Osaka Symphoniker (Japan) commissioned the second piano concerto Fas/Nefas in 1997. In 2000 the Kronos Quartet (USA) commissioned Jeths to compose a string quartet. This third string quartet Intus trepidare was very succesfully premiered by the Kronos Quartet in october 2004 in Eindhoven, Holland. The english premiere was on the 22nd of January 2005 in Barbican Centre in London and the American premiere took place on the 5th of February 2005 in the Carnegie Hall in New York. He has also received a commission from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for a flugelhorn concerto which was premiered in september 2002. In october 2003 the Flugelhorn Concerto-al fondo per l'oscuro has been released on a super-audio CD.
Willem Jeths colaborated with librettist Friso Haverkamp on the opera Hotel de Pekin - dreams for a dragon queen, about the Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi. One scene from this opera was already performed in March 2004 in Amsterdam with the Schoenberg Ensemble under the conductor Reinbert de Leeuw and vocalist Susan Narucki. The premiere of this new opera took place in november 2008 at the occasion of the opening of a new Operatheatre (Muziekkwartier) in Eschede Netherlands by the Nationale Reisopera. In 2010 this opera will also be performed in China in a co-production with the Nationale Reisopera. In January 2012 this opera will be performed in a semi-concertante version in the famous Zaterdag Matinee in the Amsterdam' Concertgebouw by the Dutch Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Groot Omroep Choir, soloists, conducted by Michael Schoenwand.
Willem Jeths has composed in 2010 his new Violin Concerto no 2 -diptych portrait-for the violinist Tasmin Little and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw in the ZaterdagMatinee, Concertgebouw Amsterdam (Saturday 28nd of May). Jeths just finished a new work for orchestra Scale per orchestra sinfonica, a commission by the Royal Concergebouw Orchestra, which is based on a personal remembrance from the last year of Gustav Mahler. (premiere: 9th of December 2010; also: 10th of December 2010).
About his work
Willem Jeths' musical language has become gradually less atonal over the years. His most recent compositions even have a prominent ground tone. Densely orchestrated sound blocks rub along one another and overlap in an idiom that might remind one more of Ligeti of Rihm than a typical composer of the Dutch school. It is worth noting that Willem Jeths won two prizes at the 1996 International Composition Competition in Vienna, for his violin concert Glenz and for his Piano Concerto. The jury included Wolfgang Rihm, Gerard Grisey, Franco Donatoni, Lothar Knessl and Friedrich Cerha - composers who, like Jeths, are intensely attuned to sound as an aspect of composition. Although a work by Willem Jeths might suggest the existence of a clear-cut plan, forms and structures fade to the background during the composition process. Jeths is driven by spirit and fancy, unfettered by predetermined routes or goals. Because he is so conscious of the basic material, the resulting form, individual and personal, appears to the listener as a taut, consistent concept that unifies the piece. This apparently contradiction, in which aesthetics and working method seem to collide, remains one of the most intriguing aspects, both musically and personally, of Willem Jeths.
Jeths does not compose according to a predetermined system; rather, he approaches a composition intuitively and allows large forms to grow organically from sparingly-chosen material. This method of composing is ideally suited to the emotional eloquence and colourful charm of his compositions. The essence of Jeths' music, lies somewhere in between nineteenth-century illusion and twentieth-century reality. The expansive, emotional lines in his works are a direct link to the late-Romantic and Expressionist language of Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Alban Berg. Jeths makes no secret of his penchant for intoxicating emotional breadth perfected by these masters, nor does he shy away from a literal quote now and again.
In his Flugelhorn Concerto -al fondo per l'oscuro, for example, Jeths appropriates the 'death chord' - an entirely chromatic harmony - from the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony. Or take the third string quartet Intus trepidare: here he refers to a fragment from Berg's "Lyric Suite" and weaves it into his own material. Still, only the most astute listener will be able to spontaneously recognize the link with these compositions. Jeths' fabric is too tightly woven for a quote to be as blatant as that. And his personal language is too far removed from that of the late Romantics and Expressionists.
While Jeths gives free rein to his emotions while composing, the result is unmistakably 20th- and 21st- century. The emotions he borrows from earlier works are incorporated in a literal sense, as archetype or declaration. Ecstasy, hysteria, total submission: these are the sentiments that form the bridge between Jeths and the Romantics. But in expressing these emotions Jeths goes even further than his forebears, taking only the most passionate and most sublime and employing them as a motto that serves to characterize an entire work. Although Mahler's 'death chord' only appears at the end of the first movement of the flugelhorn concerto, the piece is drenched with the desolation associated with that chord right from the very first penetrating notes of the work.
Jeths has a complex relationship with formal aspects in his compositions. Despite being a certified musicologist, Jeths avoids approaching composition from an academic standpoint. He eschews a predetermined formal progression: for him, composing is all about ideas and esprit. Systematic thinking is secondary. He considers each new work a quest in which intuition plays a crucial role. His broad, thorough knowledge offers a solid platform from which his intuition can take flight. And with this standpoint he distances himself from ther intellectualism of the serialist composers who dominated contemporary music in the 1950s, '60s and 70s. That period nonetheless left its mark on Willem Jeths' music.
The synthesis of form and content is a theme dear both to Jeths and to the serialists. In introducing rhythm and pitch progression as separate entities, Jeths in fact draws on serial techniques. Unlike the pure serialist, though, Jeths also explores the characterological aspects of these parameters. He juxtaposes taut metrical figures against sumptuous melodic curves and exploits their contrasting qualities, just as he can place sharply etched, linear polyphony alongside a grandiose, slowly paced sound landscape. Colourful, static passages often marked by experimental playing techniques are contrasted with dynamic, rhythmically oriented material. But the parameters rhythm and pitch prgression have yet another function. Introduced early on in a work as separate entities, they fuse together later in the compostion to form a single theme. The transformation only comes to light 'a posteriori'.
Although a work's intent might from the very first notes, the form emerges only gradually, and in a roundabout way. In that sense Jeths diverges from the Classic and Romantic path, presenting his material in a bare-bones version and saving its full, extravagant glory later. Only when the work reaches its climax does a theme make its grand, carefully prepared entrance. And only then do the distinct fragments fall into place and coalesce. The nature of Jeths' motives themselves contrasts sharply with the extreme passion with which they are expressed. A motive can consist of an interval - preferably as small an interval as possible - or a rhythm. He pours his ideas into this tiny fragment of material, while the emotional motto serves as a foothold and source of inspiration.
Once Jeths has chosen a motto, he will expand and vary it to his heart's content, but never loses sight of its original form. The basic material remains the seed from which all elements in a composition and additional ideas sprout. In maintaining contact with a single concept he creates a firmly consistent, cohesive whole. It is this unity amongst the various elements that gives Jeths' work its potency. The limitations he imposes on his choice of material does nothing to inhibit his bent for exuberant timbres. In his oeuvre this concept of sound enjoys a status equal to that of rhythms and intervallic structure.
The search for new timbres to serve the emotional impact of a work has become one of Willem Jeths' trademarks. He needn't assemble a bizarre instrumental ensemble: the traditional symphony orchestra or string quartet will suffice. But those bulwarks of the classical m usic establishment are like putty in his hands. In addition to his unorthodox use of the standard instruments he adds foreign elements tot the orchestra in porder to expand his repertoire of expressive means: non-Western percussion instruments, children's toys, breaking glass, tearing paper.
The solo concerto - the indivdual vs. the group - is a recurring genre,. In addition to piano, violin, viola, cello, harp and clarinet, Jeths has written for less everyday solo instruments: the concerti for bandoneon, alto saxophone and flugelhorn have redefined the concept of the 'solo concerto'. In these works the solo instrument plays the role of a prism that illuminates the colours of the orchestra in a variety of ways. And inversely, the soloist in turn becomes 'coloured' by the orchestra. Consequently the approach tot the orchestra in, say, a violin concerto Jeths takes it to an extreme: in order to allow this low, muffled solo instrument to penetrate and shine he simply 'lowered' the bottom end of the orchestra, creating a sort of aural 'trompe l'oeil' effect. A synthesizer that can reach an octave lower than the double basses, a contrabass clarinet, contrabassoon and the lowest register of the organ allow Jeths to create the illusion that the alto voice of the flugelhorn can soar above the entire orchestra.
As in his concertos, the soloist in Jeths' first opera Hotel de Pekin - dreams for a dragon queen, is pitted against the masses. The protagonist, the Chinese empress dowager Cixi, single-handedly attempts to uphold the values and the hierarchical structure of ancient China in the late nineteenth century. Willem Jeths goes to great lengths to achieve the sound he is after: he sinks to the nearly unplayable depths of the flugelhorn's lowest register (in the above-mentioned concerto) or sends the cello into the upper reaches of its range (for example, in the piano trio Chiasmos or in Bella Figura for solo cello). Conversely, the violin assumes the role of the cello in the third string quartet Intus trepidare.
Jeths says of these sound explorations: 'You have standard sounds as they have developed and taken root throughout history, but one can go further in enriching or manipulating these sounds. Some might use electronic means, but that doesn't suit me. For me, it's more interesting to get a traditional ensemble to produce new sounds by colouring it differently. I see that as an aspect of innovation necessary to the creative process. In that sense you could label me a modernist. As a composer you have to mould the material in your own, strictly personal way. There's no point in being merely an epigone. I am particularly keen on developing the aspect of colour. Melodies are less important than the colour constellations.'
Sounds colours have intrigued Jeths since his youth, when his maternal grandfather, a noted violinist, brought him into physical contact with sounds. More than the whoosh of the bow over the strings. Later, as an adolescent, he became entranced by the visual arts and here too it was colour that fascinated him most - in particular hues that flowed into one another and colours that reflects oyher spectra. This innate feeling for colour had become an integral part of his musical language. Rebelling against contemporary trends, Jeths has always remained loyal to his fascination for extraordinary timbres. He experiments rigorously with the instruments for which he is writing, in order to wring out its sound potential. His working method is literally 'hands on'. For Chiasmos he discoverd a technique for extending the upper range of the cello: a chopstick takes the place of the fingers of the left hand and produces surprisingly effective results. Ans as an extra bonus, he found that this procedure can transform the mild timbre of the cello into a new sound, more present and pentrating.
