Electronic music theatre by Yannis Kyriakides performed by Dutch music theatre ensemble de VeenFabriek on texts by Spinoza.
The recording is a realisation of the music written for the 2002 Veenfabriek production Spinoza. It is in two parts, Affectio and Epistola.
"Such is the beauty of this interpretation of Spinoza. Never could he have asked for a better exposure, had he ever imagined one in his distant future. If ever there was magic at work in music, it is to be experienced here. " (Sonoloco, Sweden)
The Thing Like Us Yannis Kyriakides . VeenFabriek About the Origin of the Project This CD is a realisation of the music written for the 2002 Veenstudio production SPINOZA: I am not where i think myself to be. It is in two parts: Affectio and Epistola, based respectively on the definitions of the emotions from the third part of Spinoza's Ethics, and on a letter about free will Spinoza wrote to G. H. Schaller. We chose to call the CD 'The Thing Like Us' refering to Spinoza's famous phrase 'Res Nobis Similis' in which he sets out a theory of the imaginary ego and how that affects our conception of ourselves. This was one of the initial inspirations behind the compositions on the CD. It struck me how apt that concept was to show how music effects our emotions, how we look for a mirror of ourselves in music, how we identify to certain orderings of sound and feel that expresses 'something like' our feelings and desires. Naturally the main inspiration behind this music is the compositional beauty of Spinoza's Ethics itself. The form and structure of this book can be seen almost as music in it's own right. The clarity of his thought, and the level of abstraction of his language function like music. I first had the idea of using Spinoza's texts when singer Ayelet Harpaz asked me to write a piece for her and harspichordist Zohar Shefi. They both lived in the Hague very near Spinoza's house, and though I admired his writing, I never thought that I could do anything with it in music. However I took this request as too big a coincidence to ignore: it was the right instruments, the right place, and the right people. The first half of Affectio was written in 2000, for their voice and harpsichord program and was performed many times. In the meantime I had met with Paul Koek, one of the founding directors of the theatre group ZTHollandia and Veenstudio, with whom I had worked in the past with on several projects together with the maverick composer and conceptual artist Dick Raaijmakers. These had been wonderful experiences. Working with Paul was always a great pleasure, and we were trying to brainstorm and come up with an idea for a future collaboration. Thanks to Ayelet, the Spinoza idea came up again, and though we had no real story in the conventional sense, it felt like a rich source of possibilities. The Theater aan het Spui joined the production and found us an amazing location to perform in, the old ABN bank headquarters in The Hague, which had just been left empty awaiting refurbishment. The building is located just opposite the parliament overlooking the old prison where the De Witt brothers were assassinated by a mob in 1672, an event which had a huge impact on Spinoza's life. There was so much history resonating in the area, and it felt like a real privilege to be working on a piece about Spinoza in The Hague in his old neighborhood. Having got a great team of people together to work on the piece which included artist Isaac Carlos, and actors Bert Luppes and Carola Arons, dramaturge Paul Slangen and assistant director Andrea Astbury, we developed the project on location over the space of about six weeks. Paul Koek (Director): 'Even before 2002, I knew Yannis as a composer with an original approach to theatre, music or music-theatre. Therefore when I asked him to make something for the Veenstudio, I knew I had to give him a lot of space, which is what I did, with a lot of confidence and trust. Both Yannis and Ayelet seemed to know the work of Spinoza well (and what had been published about it), but even so, I was slightly taken aback by the proposal to set to music all 48 of Spinoza's Definitions of the Emotions. Not that I doubted Yannis's ability, but I was more concerned with the question of how I would bring that to an audience. We were living in the time of the Pim Fortuin murder (who incidentally was also an admirer of Spinoza). We were playing a stone's throw from the old Spinoza house, in the old ABN bank headquarters (thanks to John Reinders from the Theater aan het Spui) and Veenstudio/ZTHollandia has always had a strong connection with social reality. What could I do with this material in order to stay close indeed to the social reality? How do I get those texts which are supposed to be read and not spoken onto the stage in this location? Those were my thoughts during the Summer of 2002 before we started work. I knew that I had two amazing actors, three fantastic musicians and a wonderful artist Isaac Carlos who Yannis had proposed. This was what I thought: 'I have to get some life into this text and I can do this by projecting the text and having it spoken in a working class Hague accent (which Bert could do very well). As long as he believed in what he was saying he was able to communicate the text clearly and simply. Spinoza The Worker . Alongside that, a woman (Carola) spoke a language that was forward-looking. A strange hostess who lives in the future and hears Spinoza's texts sung in her home. In this way I could offer these ingredients to this group of artists, because no matter if you're singing or acting, composing or designing it's about artists working together and the process of collaboration itself. I had a lot of pleasure and inspiration working on the piece and I don't expect to miss much of the 'theatre' on the CD. I gave myself the task of following whatever Yannis, with his knowledge of Spinoza and my faith in his music, would produce, and that gave rise to a very 'musical' performance piece, which certainly translates very well to CD, unlike many other theatre perfomances where the music is more functional and thus temporary.' Isaac Carlos, an Angolan artist living in The Netherlands, created some object pieces which functioned in a dramatic way throughout the course of the performance. A large glass bowl with intravenous tubes around it, which was suspended from the ceiling, was lowered into the middle of the space, where it was used as a fish-tank. The harpsichord was suspended from the ceiling of the building and hung 20 metres down where the harpsichordist met it seemingly in mid-air. The singer seemed to float through the space on a giant dress which used a foot-controlled steering stick to run a wheelchair type motor. There was a giant flat-bed scanner with an anatomical print on it which was controlled by sound. The building itself became an integral aspect of the performance. The architecture of the space and how it affected the light and sound and the performers, who appeared and disappeared in it's many corners became an essential part of the theatre. We used multiple speakers spread around all levels of the space; hence the decision on this recording to recreate that effect by making the voices inhabit specific acoustical spaces, or to give the effect in Affectio of the singer moving around an imaginary architecture. The light created by Joost Verest also highlighted these aspects of the space; he used special lamps under and inside the high ceiling to draw the attention towards the architecture. The audience was seated on 'bean bags' - cushions on the floor and thus had a view of the space looking upwards. It was therefore logical for us to make use of the two balcony levels that surrounded the main atrium. The effect was almost dreamlike. The space began to represent the idea of being inside one's mind, or Spinoza's mind. In fact that is how I saw the function of the characters in the piece. Bert Luppes who plays a character just come off the street looking for a cash-dispenser gets drawn into the space and becomes a Spinoza wandering in his own mind, a Spinoza dreaming of himself. The layers of his character had tragi-comic dimensions which were brought out by an exaggerated 'Hague' accent. (On the CD we decided to record his voice in a neutral tone, because without the context of the performance the accent was not so relevant). The character of Carola was originally a reference to Clara-Maria van den Enden. Sup
Music label for contemporary composition, experimental, improvisation, sound art. Unsounds was founded in 2001 by guitarist Andy Moor (The Ex), composer/sound artist Yannis Kyriakides, and designer/visual artist Isabelle Vigier.
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