My piece ”street” was written for the Dutch wind group Orkest de Volharding. This ensemble was organized by Louis Andriessen as a hip, dynamic, no-nonsense street band. What occurred to me while writing my piece was that the actual street was there long before Louis imagined what sort of ensemble should be standing upon it. What sort of music would a hip, dynamic, no-nonsense street band have played if it had been standing on that street 400 years earlier, founded not by Andriessen but by, maybe, Sweelinck, for example? Just as Louis created for Orkest de Volharding a complete musical world out of a few fundamental musical concepts, my piece concentrates on a few 16th Century ideas – most notably ideas about vocal lines, suspensions and scale – focusing in on them relentlessly until they take over the entire piece.
