componist
Wim Laman is als componist grotendeels autodidact. Tijdens zijn universiteitsstudie voeren studentenorkesten zijn eerste composities uit. Hierna wordt zijn werk opgemerkt door de professionele muziekwereld. Laman componeert voor o.a. het ...
gerelateerde werken
Oresteia : opera in 3 acts, 1996, Act 1, Agamemnon / libretto after Aeschylos' Oresteia, Wim Laman
Genre:
Opera, muziektheater
Subgenre:
Opera
Bezetting:
sopr sopr-m ten bar bas MK4 2333 2sax 4231 4perc pf(synth) str(12.12.8.8.6.) tape
Genre:
Vocaal
Subgenre:
Zangstem en orkest
Bezetting:
ten 3333 4331 timp 2perc cel 2hp str
Binding : for soprano and orchestra, 1992 / poems by Anne Rovaarts, Ron Ford
Genre:
Vocaal
Subgenre:
Zangstem en orkest
Bezetting:
sopr 3333 4431 3perc hp pf str(8.8.8.8.8.)
Zeven Italiaansche liederen : voor sopraan en orkest / bewerking Anth. van der Horst
Genre:
Vocaal
Subgenre:
Zangstem en orkest
Bezetting:
sopr 3342 4230 timp perc 2hp str
compositie
Canto infernale : per soprano e 3 gruppi strumentali, 1978 (revisione 1980) / testo: Dante Alighieri; Eustache Deschamps, musica: Wim Laman
Overige auteurs:
Dante Alighieri
(tekstdichter/librettist)
Deschamps, Eustache
(tekstdichter/librettist)
Toelichting:
Program note (English): Starting point of this work was a pentatonic scale and a transposition of it. A transposition, as I applied the transposition principle in a very unconstrained way in regards to melody. This two-fold starting point - the scale and its transposition a minor second apart - entailed automatically the augmented fourth, the 'diabolus in musica' (of course since it is a Song of Hell).
The choice of the pentatonic scale arose also from a need for harmonic coherence in the structure of the work as a whole, to avoid a complete scattering (and a chaotic impression) of the musical material. Out of the basic scale I developed a series of chords, each of which form the central element of the successive phases.
Underlying this composition are the characteristics of the nine circles of Dante's 'Inferno' . Fantasy or not, it is characteristic by the cruelty of medieval thinking that celestial beatitude should include the spectacle of the sinners' torments in hell. So there is an interlacing of reality and fantasy, also found in Dante's 'Commedia'. Dante's language is so expressive and realistic that it was believed until long after his death that he really had made the journey in the hereafter as he related it. In 'Canto infernale', I emphasized the relation between reality and fantasy by quoting, along with fragments from Dante's fantastic tale, a gloomy poem by Eustache Deschamps. Gloomy, because Deschamps lived in a time when Europe was afflicted by long wars, peasants revolts, plundering hirelings and the pestilence causing millions of deaths, and out of a mystic-religious attitude he developed a cynical-moralistic view.
Is such a mystic-religious attitude still present? Although in respect to religion the edges have been smoothed, human malice has survived, often hidden by a refined system of mystification that has the power to set masses into motion and to transform them into ruthless murderers. Thus hell is man's invention, made actual time and again under the name of Auschwitz, Dresden, Vietnam, torture rooms, etc. - WIM LAMAN