Voices of the Past

Date of composition: December 2016
Instrumentation: recorder trio (ATT)
Duration: 6’15”

This work was a commission for the annual En Avant Mars/Voorwaarts Maart festival in de Bijloke and was first performed by Apsara trio. The festival is a series of several concerts and performances throughout the evening, seeking to blur the lines between classical music and lighter genres, as well as integrating other art forms. The 2016 edition focused on the idea of “generations”.

With this theme, you automatically think of the past. How did we come from “then” to the “now”? What has evolved? But also: what has remained unchanged? Human history is relatively short and yet incredibly eventful. The amount of conflicts is staggering, endless. The goal of studying history is thus becoming aware of humanity’s past mistakes, in order to learn from them. And yet, we seem to have learned very little in terms of our own humanity. 2016 was a chaotic year with many losses. Corrupt leaders and extremists seemed to be gaining more and more traction, using the uncertainty of the times to gain more power. Some even started to fear for a third world war. Humans regard themselves as the most intelligent species on Earth, but given current events, that remains up for discussion. We should listen to the voices of the past. Hence the title of this piece.

Stylistically, I express this idea of the past by returning to ancient melodies, Gregorian chant, more specifically the Kyrie, which is an appeal for forgiveness for the many sins we commit. Of the majority of Gregorian chants, we are no longer certain where they originate from, who wrote which melodies. In the same way, humanity seems to forget its own history. These voices of the past appear in this composition in a literal way, by singing into the flutes. This creates not only extra possibilities in terms of polyphony and harmony, but also creates a kind of distortion effect (and an intimidating extra challenge for the performers). Similarly, we often have a distorted idea of what is going on around us. Thus, this piece serves as a call to peace, an appeal to society to stop and think about how we are co-existing with our fellow people. A reminder for my generation to think carefully about how our actions will affect the next.