This trio of works by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen speak mightily to his musical and conceptual restlessness. From utilizing ensembles of various sizes and forms -- unlike the rest of the Dutch new classicists, Andriessen has more colors in his palette than just gray and black -- Andriessen has sought throughout his career to view music as a construct of the whole rather than in parts. Therefore, in De Stijl, the third movement of a large four-part opera about Piet Mondrian called Matter, combinations are agreed to in advance. First the composer combines two ensembles, and then creates, much as Mondrian the artist did, a conceptual color scheme based on combinations (the painting "Composition With Red, Yellow, and Blue" from 1927 was Andriessen's inspiration). Here the four sopranos meet the trumpet section, the four saxes the french horn, the trombone the guitar section (six pieces), and the solo piano the lower instruments. The 24-bar rhythmic theme is reminiscent of both disco and funk but sound like neither one, and are confronted by a shimmering piano solo. Tarantellas, waltzes, tangos, and boogaloos are all evoked in the varying color combinations focusing on Mondrian's obsession with dancing -- as both a man and a painter. The feel of the music is extremely modern yet ageless; the lyrical qualities it shares with contemporary popular music are unmistakable, but there is also no question that this is formally constructed classical music with sophisticated, even difficult harmonic relationships and timbral equations. The movement theme is once again evoked in the much more abstract Dances from 1991. With a chamber orchestra conducted by the original third stream king himself, Gunther Schuller, with a stunning performance by soprano Claron McFadden. Originally composed to accompany a dance company, Andriessen has extracted all but one section and rescored it for chamber orchestra. Movement and its subtleties -- depicted by orchestral shadowing -- are the themes here. Everything is deliberate, obsessively so, as evidenced by the sight-specific pianistic sonorities. Like Debussy's Three Nocturnes, the mood is nearly pastoral in the beginning. A third of the way through McFadden enters, covered by a harp and the lower register of the piano before strings and winds fill in the palette and open up the tempo to real movement, releasing the tension and bringing in the light with reed cadenzas and cascading woodwinds. The effect is glorious and chilling, offering both a rich -- if darkly hued -- hearing of postmodern harmonic considerations and a post-Romantic lushness. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		De Stijl
2		Trepidus, for piano
3		Dances, for soprano & chamber orchsetra