DESCRIPTION:
Michel van der Aa (1970)

Imprint : for solo violin and Baroque Orchestra (2005)

Gottfried von der Goltz, violin
Orchestra: Freiburg Baroque Orchestra


Composer's notes: Imprint takes Baroque articulation, stylistic conventions and virtuosity and develops them into full-blown modern Concerto Grosso. Monothematic material, maniacally repeated, becomes a virtuoso gesture. This material, introduced by the solo violin, spreads like wildfire through the rest of the orchestra, flung back and forth between instrumental groups. During the piece the solo violinist is required to place lead ‘fingers’ on the keys of a portative organ, producing, voice by voice, a faint chord audible only through the gaps in the virtuosic orchestral tutti. This chord is not only an imprint of the significant pitches in the piece, but it is also a theatrical gesture: these lead fingers embody the hand of a long-deceased Baroque composer.
The piece should preferably be performed on period instruments with 415 Hz Baroque tuning. It may, however, be performed on modern instruments provided they are used in Baroque style in terms of clarity of tone and are played without vibrato. - Michel van der Aa


Michel van der Aa is a Dutch composer. For Van der Aa, music is more than organized sound or a structuring of notes. His music has expressive power, combining sounds and scenic images in a play of changing perspectives. Van der Aa's recent stage works show a successful involvement as a film and stage director as well as composer.
"One of the most distinctive of the younger composers in Europe today. His ability to fuse music, text and visual images into a totally organic whole sets him apart from nearly all his contemporaries." (The Guardian)
Van der Aa's works often include a theatrical element: staging, film and music are seamlessly interwoven. Dramatic personages take on various identities or have an alter ego; musicians on the stage interact with their electronic counterparts on soundtrack or film. The virtual space that emerges works its way into the mind of the audience. Sound, in Van der Aa's book, is malleable: it can constantly assume other forms, sometimes recognizable, sometimes not. Van der Aa is in fact a playwright in music.
His sounds - like real people - can be flexible or stubborn; they either take control or get the short end of the stick; they reinforce or counteract each other, affecting audiences with their expressive power.
Having completed his training as a recording engineer at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Michel van der Aa studied composition with Diderik Wagenaar, Gilius van Bergeijk and Louis Andriessen. His style, independent in spirit, is characterized by a constructivist approach and the use of rhythm and chords as structural elements. It is strikingly subtle, playful, poetic and transparent but not, however, expressive or melodious in the traditional sense.
In 2002 Van der Aa completed a program in film directing at the New York Film Academy. In 2007 he participated in the Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab, an intensive course in stage direction. He was responsible for the stage direction as well as the conception and creation of the film segments in the operas One and After Life and the music theatre piece The Book of Disquiet. His film directing credits include the short film Passage as well as the television production of One for the Dutch national broadcasting company NPS. Passage has been shown at numerous international festivals and has been aired on Dutch national television.