The Low Countries. Jaargang 6

Very Abstract Music
Karel Goeyvaerts and the Internationalisation of New Music in Flanders

When as a student at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music in Antwerp Karel Goeyvaerts (1923-1993) dared to play Bartok's piano composition Allegro barbaro, the principal promptly sent him out of the classroom with the words: ‘Bartok does not belong in an academy.’ This incident illustrates the extent to which even after the Second World War Flemish music was still dominated by the nationalistic music ideology introduced by the composer Peter Benoit almost a hundred years earlier. There is no doubt that this ideology made a major contribution to the cultural, social and political emancipation of the Flemish people. In terms of music, however, Benoit's followers lagged further and further behind the developments taking place in European music during the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, it is part of the essence of Flemish nationalistic music to shield itself against ‘foreign’ influences, and a fortiori against modernism. When the nationalistic music ideology ceases to stimulate creativity, what we are left with is the reverse of ideology. And then only its own mediocrity is shielded.

The Bartok incident made Goeyvaerts realise that a student anxious to explore beyond his own provincial borders must seek his fortune elsewhere. In 1947 he left for the Paris conservatoire, where he studied composition under Darius Milhaud and music analysis under Olivier Messiaen and quickly assimilated the developments in new music since 1910. Goeyvaerts saw particular potential for his own compositions in Messiaen's rhythmic innovations and in Anton Webern's structuralistic application of the dodeca-

[p. 295]

phonic principle. In this compositional technique the twelve pitches within the octave are arranged in a series which then goes to form the structural basis (the grammar) of a composition. By this time Webern had so improved upon this serial principle that the original series directly generated both the musical content and the musical form. With his Sonata for two Pianos (1950-1951), Karel Goeyvaerts was the first in the history of music to manage to adapt this serial technique not only to pitch, but also to rhythm, dynamics and articulation. This is possibly the most abstract music ever written. The aesthetic consistency and the breathtaking constructivism of Goeyvaerts' Sonata were to serve as a model for the whole of the European avant-garde in the fifties. This was already apparent in July 1951 at the Internationale Ferienkurse für neue Musik in Darmstadt, where Goeyvaerts presented his No. i (as he called his Sonata) in the seminar of Theodor W. Adorno. This authoritative (music) philosopher with his pre-war classifications did not appreciate Goeyvaerts' radically innovative composition, but for Karlheinz Stockhausen and the other young composers who attended the event, No. i was a revelation.

Goeyvaerts was also one of the first to experiment with electronic music, in which he could exercise even greater discipline over both composition and performance (by means of a once and forever fixed tape). The subtitle of his No. 5 - With Pure Tones - speaks volumes in that respect: the abstract sound structure exudes absolute purity both technically and aesthetically. From the sixties onwards, Goeyvaerts was no longer

Darmstadt, 1951 (from left to right): Luigi Nono, Karel Goeyvaerts and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

the pioneer of radical changes in new music he had been in the fifties, but he did follow those changes very closely and made a valuable contribution to many different forms of experimental music. A fine example of this is the orchestral work composed in 1971 entitled According to ..., a sort of ‘mobile’ which allowed the public to influence the actual performance. In the first instance, Goeyvaerts provided the audience with stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers. These would communicate the physical and mental experiences of the listeners to a computer which would redirect this information straight to the conductor, who would then adapt the interpretation to the reactions of the audience during the performance. Repetitive music did not escape Goeyvaerts' attention either. The five repetitive Litanies written between 1979 and 1982 using this technique are undoubtedly the culminating point of this group of works. The austerity and economy of means characteristic of this ‘minimal music’ were intensified in Goeyvaerts' work, on the aesthetic level also. Finally, he did not shy away from the expressive intentions and tonal techniques typical of the neo-romantic music of the eighties.

All this came together in his opus ultimum, the large-scale opera Aquarius (1983-1993). The vocal contingent features eight sopranos and eight baritones who only perform collectively; there is an orchestra, there is a vague apocalyptical cum astrological theme (the evolution towards a more harmonious society), but for the rest there are no characters, there is no real libretto and hardly any semantically intelligible text. Only in an indirect manner do we come to learn of Goeyvaerts' perception of the staging of Aquarius: from his correspondence with a visual artist it appears that the composer had in mind a non-symbolic and geometric-abstract visualisation. Two conclusions can be drawn from this: despite the many sudden changes in style and seemingly restorative tunes, Goeyvaerts remained an innovative artist to the end, and after the strictly serial music of the fifties his predilection for abstraction never left him. Thus, on closer examination the successive stylistic shifts are at the most but different embodiments of the same aesthetic idea, concealing a remarkably homogeneous compositional oeuvre.

Karel Goeyvaerts brought the world of new music to Flanders, and conversely he put Flanders back on the map of European music. The international orientation of later generations of Flemish composers was almost a matter of course, thanks to his open mind and unflagging interest in all that was innovative. Since Goeyvaerts, Flemish music has no longer lagged decades behind, but eager young composers have been relatively quick to participate in new musical developments. At the same time, Goeyvaerts has gone down in the history of music as having initiated serial and electronic music but, in addition to that, he will be remembered for the quality of his oeuvre as a whole. That honour has not been conferred upon a Flemish composer

[p. 296]

since the Low Countries' fifteenth and sixteenth-century polyphonists.

mark delaere

Translated by Alison Mouthaan-Gwillim.

Bibliography

delaere, marc (ed.), ‘The artistic legacy of K. Goeyvaerts. A collection of essays’, thematic issue of Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap, no. 48, 1994.

goeyvaerts, karel, Karel Goeyvaerts, een zelfportret. Ghent, 1988.

Goeyvaerts' scores have been published by CeBeDeM (Aarlenstraat 75 / 1040 Brussels / Belgium). The manuscripts can be studied at the K. Goeyvaerts New Music Research Centre (Catholic University of Leuven, university archives / Central Library / P.O. Box 33 / 3000 Leuven / Belgium).

Discography

Champ d'Action plays K. Goeyvaerts (Megadisc mdc 7877, 1992)

Litanies (Megadisc mdc 7872 / 73, 1994)

Quatuor Danel, String Quartets (Megadisc mdc 7853, 1996)

Jan Michiels, Works for Piano (Megadisc mdc 7848, 1996)

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, 16 vocal soloists, G. Llewellyn, Aquarius (Megadisc mdc 7850 / 51, 1997)

Champ d'Action, The Serial Works (Megadisc, 1998)