The Arresting Advantage

— J. Chr. de Vries

Do not believe what the historians say, but neither that they say it without reason.
— Jan Romein, motto History of North Dutch Historiography in the Middle Ages.

Interview

The interview with Nico ten Broddels, the composer and former teacher of what was once referred to as ‘The Hague School’ took place in the rustic garden of his modest abode near the village of Le Bugue in the Dordogne. We sat in a sheltered spot in front of his house, under a large red parasol. The location was more or less enclosed by a wooden cabin where a stockpile of firewood for the cold months was stacked, and remnants of a stone structure, possibly a stable. Behind the wall, which stood at right angles to the house and provided some of the shelter behind us, two enormous lime trees rose from the grass, marking the boundary with the neighbouring estate to the south. Ten Broddels likened his garden to the Garden of Eden; the two trees were, for him, a metaphor for the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Various other trees, including an Australian Eucalyptus, massive oaks, a walnut tree, a plum tree, and many types of shrubs, plants, and herbs, grew around the house. The garden was enclosed on two sides by a hedge, the third side was bordered by a group of young fir trees, and the fourth side offered a view of the neighbouring estate to the northeast. On the table beneath the parasol were cans of beer, two bottles of wine, red and white, still water, and a basket of baguettes with a dish of olive oil in which pepper and sea salt were sprinkled. It was warm, the sky was brilliantly blue, it was a time for a lazy afternoon of doing nothing, perhaps some chitchat, but not for conducting an interview.


“Which of the two trees is the one of Knowledge of Good and Evil?” 
 


“I will only know that once I have eaten from that tree,” replied Ten Broddels. 


“What made you see this place as a metaphor for the paradise?”

“Firstly, it’s the location, not so much the house, but especially the beautiful garden surrounding it; it has a very peaceful atmosphere. Of course, the tranquillity, the silence. But there’s something else: when we came to look at the house, to consider whether we wanted to buy it, they had just started assigning street names and house numbers in this area, which was new. I told my wife that I especially wanted to buy a house where I could peacefully pass away. We drove up the road to the house, and then we saw the new name of that road: ‘Route de Bonnemort’.”


“You had just retired as a teacher back then. Were you already preoccupied with the idea of dying?” 


“In fact, for quite some time, but the conflict-ridden farewell from my work was traumatic.”


“We’ll get to that later, but let’s start at the beginning.”

Ten Broddels remembered that he was accepted into the preparatory year of the composition department of the conservatory in The Hague in 1974. The official address was on Korte Beestenmarkt, but the main entrance was around the corner on Prinsegracht. It was a rickety building that would undoubtedly be deemed too dangerous for use by the fire department in the present day.

“During the May Concerts in the C-Hall, you could see the ceiling of the cafeteria below it moving up and down.”

“Those concerts were a famous part of what would later be known as the ‘Haagse School’. I don’t want to delve into that term in detail at this moment; that’s for later, but your description does capture the adventurous spirit that prevailed then. It was the time of the Den Uyl Cabinet, which used the slogan De verbeelding aan de macht [Imagination in Power]. 


“Indeed, but with such memories, the emphasis often lies on the external aspects; that moving ceiling and the adventurous spirit, if we’re not careful, can be merely anecdotal. Such a focus on anecdote invites The Arresting Advantage to intervene. But now I’m jumping ahead to the issue of that ‘Haagse School’. Let’s go back to the beginning of my studies.”

The Father

Nico ten Broddels’ father had an administration and organization consultancy, and he wanted Nico, his eldest child, to take over the business in due time. However, Nico had different plans; he wanted to pursue a life as a composer. His father didn’t want to take that dream away from him but hoped that Nico would consider a combination, stating, ‘You can’t make a living from art alone.’ Another complication was Nico’s mandatory military service. He wanted to refuse, but his father set a condition for paying for his education and living expenses: Nico had to complete his military service first. Here, the war trauma of his father comes into play. His father had gone into hiding as an eighteen-year-old to avoid the Nazi Arbeitseinsatz, betrayed by a Dutch policeman and sent to Kamp Amersfoort. There, he attempted an escape, which failed, and he was then transferred to KZ Neuengamme.

“For your father, military service was a kind of substitute for an unwanted situation, one that you got into and had to learn to deal with; your version of his camp experience, in a much milder form. He believed he was placed in the camp by his God for a purpose, and he, as a surrogate for God, placed you in military service for a similar purpose — learning to cope with a hostile world. It’s an impure projection on his part, but fundamentally, it comes from a noble motive.”


“All of this is anecdotal,” Ten Broddel said, “tragic, miserable, and extremely painful, but I fail to see how this contributes to a fundamental understanding of that period of the ‘Haagse School’ and ensemble culture in the Netherlands, which is the actual subject of our conversation.”


“That remains to be seen,” I said. “But perhaps you should clarify what you precisely mean by the term ‘anecdotal’.”

“By ‘anecdotal’, I refer to meaning that is purely personal, something that relates to the private space. An event or action needs to transcend the anecdotal in order to have a public meaning. Anecdotes belong in the pub.”

“But can these two domains truly be separated? The private is always influenced by the public; your father’s betrayal is a good example of that.” I felt somewhat uneasy, seeing that the topic weighed heavily on him.


“The private is indeed influenced by the public, but not the other way around. The moment I carry out an action from the private sphere that has an impact on the public, that action becomes public. It ultimately comes down to definition.”


“If it’s a matter of definition, an instrument, in fact, the follow-up question is what this contributes to the analysis of events or actions. Does it clarify or provide insight?” I didn’t quite understand where he was heading.

“I’ll provide a musical example. Imagine a composer is suffering from intense heartbreak and composes a Lamento to express it. If the piece doesn’t transcend the articulation of this sorrow, it remains anecdotal. It fails as a work of art. As a work of true art, I mean. You might think that Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise has a similar expression as its subject — a man leaves his lover’s house due to problems with her parents and goes into the night feeling downcast. But the cycle is much more than that. The heartbreak is just the surface of the story; it is used as a form to address a deeper problem, that of death. There are multiple layers; the anecdote is the instrument to shape the deeper layer. And I haven’t even mentioned the peculiar underlying layer of the creative process, based on a misunderstanding with significant consequences. But that may be going too far for our current discussion.”


“No, it can’t go too far for me,” I said, “go ahead!”


“Do you know about the initial version of it?”


“Not really, no, I only know that there’s an earlier version of the cycle that he later expanded.”


“That’s correct. It’s particularly the way this happened that makes the entire creative process and the end result so interesting.”

Winterreise

Ten Broddels shared the following intriguing story about the creation of Winterreise, I’ll try to convey it as accurately as possible.


Around the turn of the year 1826/1827, Schubert found himself in the library of his friend Franz von Schober. He took an almanac from one of the shelves, the Urania from 1823. He flipped through it and eventually came across a cycle of poems by a certain Wilhelm Müller, titled Die Winterreise (with an article). The cycle consisted of twelve poems. Schubert decided to borrow the book and composed his song cycle. The last song, Einsamkeit, is, like the first, in D-minor, as is typical.


In the autumn of 1827, Schubert was once again in Von Schober’s library, and he picked up an almanac from a shelf, this time the Urania from 1824. As he flipped through it, to his astonishment, he encountered the same poem cycle by Wilhelm Müller, but this time, there were twenty-four poems! Müller had added twelve more poems, but this was of course three years ago. Schubert had mistakenly picked up the wrong book the previous time. And had those twelve poems been simply added to the end, the problem would have been manageable, but Müller had also mixed them up. The first twelve poems in the final version no longer matched the twelve Schubert had used for his cycle. What to do? Compose the entire cycle anew? Schubert was unwell and lacked the strength for that. So, he made a bold decision: he composed twelve new songs and simply appended them. Only the originally last song, Einsamkeit, he transposed to B-minor.


A mystery of the cycle is the song Die Nebensonnen. The text mentions three suns, “the best two” disappear. What are these ‘secondary suns’? In the usual interpretation, these are both eyes of his beloved, whom he had to leave. It’s a superficial explanation that doesn’t capture the depth of the mystery you feel when listening to the cycle. However, even a metaphorical explanation, viewing the cycle as a typical example of romantic expression, misses the depth of the ‘underlying form’.


It’s tempting to read Schubert himself as the protagonist of the cycle. This immediately offers a more interesting explanation for those secondary suns: one represents Schubert’s life, knowing he is dying, and the other stands for his music. This is evident in the final question in Der Leiermann, the question posed to Death: Willst zu meiner Liedern deiner Leier dreh’n? Do you want to continue playing your hurdy-gurdy for my music? But is it that straightforward? After all, Schubert didn’t write that text. It was an existing text written by someone Schubert didn’t know. The interpretation of Schubert aligning with the protagonist in the cycle now seems highly doubtful.


Nonetheless, there is a surprising way out: Schubert’s ‘mistake’ in choosing the ‘wrong’ almanac from the bookshelf. Suppose Schubert had selected the correct almanac from 1824 all at once, the complete cycle. It’s unlikely that he would have interfered with the order of those poems. He hadn’t done that with the first twelve poems either.


And precisely this intervention provides an exit. Because Schubert didn’t stop at that one, effectively forced, intervention. He allowed himself a second intervention. In Müller’s cycle, the penultimate poem is Mut! [Courage!]. This leaves room for a more positive or at least lighter (potentially ironic) interpretation of the cycle. Schubert moved this song forward and pushed Die Nebensonnen to the back; he made it the penultimate song. This dramatic change altered the meaning of the cycle. Schubert’s intervention in the text, through that swap, enabled the cycle to become a masterpiece.

The story was clear, but I had one more question: “Schubert’s terminal illness and picking up the wrong book from a bookshelf seem anecdotal to me. Apparently, an anecdote can still have public significance, or am I mistaken?”


“Firstly, the illness and death of a public figure are not anecdotal; the death of the café owner where Schubert had his beers is anecdotal. Secondly, an anecdote, such as the one about Urania, can acquire or bring about fundamental significance through the act of an artist. The private is then integrated into the public. Every public figure also has a private side.”


“So, if I understand correctly, the same applies to your cycle Bloed, which is also connected to a strongly personal and therefore anecdotal element, namely your father’s camp experience. But you would argue that the cycle transcends this anecdotal aspect due to its musical expressiveness, as the anecdote shapes the ‘underlying structure’ (in part). What is this ‘underlying structure’ (or ‘form’) exactly?”

“If I were to put it in an abstract way, it’s the structure that elevates the anecdote, the anecdote is ‘sublated’ — what Hegel would call ‘aufgehoben’. The underlying form makes the work multi-layered; it adds depth to it. The manipulation of the text by Schubert is an example of this. But this form can also occur in harmony, rhythm, the use of motifs or themes, in short, in the purely musical structure. Since we’re talking about Schubert, another composition of his, the Symphony in B-minor, is a good example of how this underlying form fails.

The first movement of this so-called Unfinished Symphony has the typical sonata-allegro form as its structure. This should determine the underlying form, but in this case, it doesn’t. The ‘development’ section indeed sounds as it should, featuring diminished seventh chords, tremolos, and fortissimo tutti sections — in other words, some ‘hard developing’ is at hand. However, upon closer examination, something essential for a development section is missing: apart from some accompanying motifs, nothing is done with the two themes. The development mainly relies on the introductory phrase that precedes the sonata-allegro form. If you look at the two themes, you’ll see that they are essentially two songs, and songs are hard to develop because they are ‘complete’, self-contained. They don’t offer an opening for development. The sonata-allegro form is used as an anecdote and not transcended. This is not unusual for a composer of songs. It happened more frequently in the nineteenth century, and you can see how Beethoven’s ‘Arresting Advantage’ was destructive.”

For some reason, we just couldn’t get to discussing Ten Broddels’ study years. I preferred to delve deeper into what he meant by the ‘Arresting Advantage’, but it was causing a mess in my structure. I decided to present my problem to him. “I’m concerned about the ‘underlying form’ of my interview.”


“Yes, indeed,” said Ten Broddels, “we still haven’t touched on my study years. The question is whether it affects your underlying form. Chronology can be a starting point for the structure, but it’s not mandatory; other structural principles are possible, such as specific ideas, concepts, or principles. For example, the ‘anecdotal’ or the ‘objectwise’ versus the ‘subjectwise’. The choice is yours.”


“Okay. Which concepts do you think should be addressed in our conversation?”


“Definitely the ‘anecdotal’, the ‘objectwis versus the subjectwise’, and the ‘Arresting Advantage.”


“Besides your study years and the time afterward, your practice as a professional composer and teacher.”


“And then there’s the relationship of all these matters with art policy and political-economic policy,” said Ten Broddels. “And themes like friendship and betrayal, ‘truth versus power’, and the question of whether pure art is conceivable and possible.”


While Ten Broddels went to get us a new supply of drinks and snacks, I tried to structure my questions. There was also the concept of the ‘Haagse School’, for whatever it would ultimately be worth. After Ten Broddels settled back in next to me under the parasol, equipped with a fresh cigar, I started my questioning.

The Arresting Advantage

“We have already discussed the concept of ‘anecdotal’ in quite some detail, and I believe this is relevant for understanding more chronologically discussed topics, alongside other concepts like the ‘Arresting Advantage’ and the ‘objectwise versus subjectwise’. They provide context for the more factual issues. Your argument regarding the significance of the anecdote led to an intriguing hypothesis of Beethoven’s Arresting Advantage. Two questions now: where does this concept come from, and why is it applicable to Beethoven’s music?”


“The concept was coined by the historian Jan Romein in an essay titled De dialectiek van de vooruitgang [The Dialectics of Progress] from 1935. This essay was also published in the 1937 collection Onvoltooid Verleden [Unfinished Past] and at least the Dutch version is available on the internet in a PDF format.

To start, Romein makes a distinction between the ‘higher’ and the ‘lower’. Initially, he refers to the production system and the concept of ‘progress’. His analysis is dialectical, considering a certain situation as a thesis, against which, for example, in the production process, an antithesis is created, ultimately leading to a synthesis that is of a higher order than the original thesis. The thesis is thus of a lower order than the synthesis. This process of transforming the ‘lower’ into something ‘higher’ is progress. The ‘higher’ then has a lead over the ‘lower’. His most famous example is gas lighting in London. In its early days, this belonged to the ‘higher’; it was a modern form of urban lighting at the time. Later, electric lighting emerged, and what happened? A city like Amsterdam effortlessly transitioned to this more modern form of urban lighting. London did not. Why not? This is where Romein posits his ‘Law of the Arresting Advantage’. The sheer scale of gas lighting in a global metropolis like London was simply too significant. The lead was turned into a handicap by its sheer massiveness.


He provides other examples, one of which I’ll select from military history: the Battle of Crécy in 1356. The highly modern French knightly army, considered superior to the English foot soldiers at the time, was overwhelmed by the latter. The difference lay in the use of hired archers. King Edward III of England could take advantage of the so-called ‘scutage’, which allowed the archers to be paid. This ‘scutage’ had replaced a legally enforced military conscription. Of course, the French king also understood the value of archers, but his knights did not understand this, or did not want to understand it. The horde of knights on horseback trampled over their own archers, shouting, ‘Come on, kill those insolent rascals blocking our way,’ and thus rode to their doom. Fifteen hundred French knights perished, while only a few dozen English soldiers were killed.


Progress must apparently come from the less advanced; this is Romein’s conclusion: ‘the most backward has the best chance of progress.’ Of course, you can question Romein’s dialectical premise; we are ninety years further along. But there is something in his hypothesis that I find so attractive that I made a connection with Beethoven. His innovations and elaborations of the sonata form and especially the song form could also be considered as a new, high-quality stage in compositional technique, which ultimately proved to have a hindering influence.”


“All right, if I understand correctly, Beethoven had a inhibiting effect on the composers after him because of his anchoring of the sonata form in compositional technique, so that well into the nineteenth century, symphonies, overtures, and the like used this form as a mold, and according to you, it was purely anecdotal because the expression sought by the composers had nothing to do with it. Then the question arises: what ‘lower’ or ‘backward’ technique formed the antithesis that ultimately brought composition to a ‘higher’ level?”


“Not every antithesis inevitably leads to a synthesis; sometimes a system just falls apart. The Roman Empire fell apart without a comparable new empire emerging. But the reverse can also happen; a ‘high’ power can be dismantled by an even ‘higher’ power, such as the atomic bomb that forced the ‘highly advanced’ Japanese army to its knees.


To understand Beethoven’s ‘Arresting Advantage’ we must first understand on which ‘superiority’ his music is based. Its essence lies in the musical language he employs, namely functional tonality. He didn’t invent it himself; it was already available. We can only understand this tonality as a Gestalt. All elements of the musical language and the techniques used, such as harmony, rhythm, melody, phrase structure, larger forms, instrumentation, voicing, dynamics, and tempo, are all related to the idea of a tonic and a system of two forces: the force moving away from the tonic and the force returning to it. This hierarchical system forms the circulatory system of tonal language: the heart, the veins, the nervous system, and oxygen.”


The power of this system is unparalleled, and even today, composers have to engage with it. You mentioned its influence extending ‘well into the nineteenth century,’ but Schönberg and Webern also used the sonata form in their ‘atonal’ works. However, in their case, it was anecdotal because they had abandoned tonal language. Schönberg and his followers made a mistake: they believed that tonality had disintegrated due to the unrestrained increase in chromaticism, starting with Wagner, and later Reger; and Schönberg himself, of course. For them, chromaticism, especially demonstrated by a chromatic theme in Bach’s fugue (from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, in B-minor) containing all twelve tones from the octave, served as proof of this antithesis. It was this antithesis that eventually enabled the synthesis into the twelve-tone technique. A colossal mistake, as chromaticism, in and of itself, does not undermine tonal articulation. Bach’s fugue, Wagner’s work, and Reger’s music can be understood very well within the framework of functional tonality. The disintegration of tonality could only occur in one way: by breaking down the binding principles that enabled its Gestalt. This was done by disrupting the hierarchy and dislodging different elements from each other. One such method, which you might indeed call a ‘backward’ harmonic technique, is the use of parallel harmony; simply shifting certain chords while disregarding the tonal aspects that call for their resolution, namely the leading tone and the seventh. Debussy uses parallel seventh chords, as in his prelude La Cathédrale Engloutie, for example. His work is filled with them.


He juxtaposes seventh chords next to each other, paying no attention to the notes in those chords that tonal music would require to be resolved, namely the leading tone and the seventh; these chords have become sounds that can coexist. This technique of parallel harmony underpins medieval European polyphony, as seen in parallel organums, for example.”


“Hmmm… does this suffice to make your hypothesis of Beethoven’s ‘Arresting Advantage’ plausible? I understand your point about the — let’s say — ‘primitive’ harmony taking the place of the high-quality functional harmony, but Beethoven himself also uses parallel harmony.”


“That’s correct. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach also used it extensively. However, the majority of the harmony they applied was still tonal. The fragments with parallel harmony were exceptions. The point is that from the late 19th century onwards, tonality was systematically undermined, causing it to eventually deteriorate into anecdotal use. Parallel harmony was just one example. It also happens through rhythmic processes and the juxtaposition of different musical layers that are no longer connected within a tonal Gestalt via the tonal system. I’ll provide two more examples, one from Debussy and one from Webern.”

Debussy — des pas sur la neige

Ten Broddels got up and said he was going to get two scores so that he could show me what he meant with the musical notation. I appreciated that, but I had to figure out how to incorporate all of this into my text. It shouldn’t get too specialized; otherwise, only the musical experts would understand it.


Armed with two scores and a fresh cigar, Ten Broddels began: “First, Prelude number VI from Claude Debussy’s first book of Preludes.”
 “Ah, des pas sur la neige…” I said. “I used to play that a lot.”


“That’s convenient because then you’ll better understand what I’m talking about.”


“Yes, but many of my readers probably can’t even read music,” I replied.


“It’s your job to express what I’m saying well; it’s your profession.”


He took the Debussy score and placed it on the table in front of us.
 I recognized the musical notation. “Go ahead.”


“The piece is written in a form of D-minor, as you can see from the key signature, one flat, and the notation. However, it’s not, as is usually the case, Harmonic minor but Aeolian. We see a C-natural throughout instead of C-sharp. Superficially, it appears to be a ‘regular’ tonal piece, but it’s not. In a conventional tonal composition, there would be modulation, typically from D-minor to its related major key, in this case, F-major — they have the same key signature. Then there would likely be modulations to nearby keys, the dominant or subdominant. Debussy does none of that. There’s one other tonality that seems to come by, though it’s not a real key; it’s a ‘tonal area’ far from D-minor: a dominant seventh chord built on C-sharp or D-flat — he spells them in both forms. From tonal principles, this suggests modulation, but it doesn’t actually occur.”


“But from measure 8 onwards, can’t you hear a different key? I hear something with F-sharp and C-sharp,” I asked, uncertainly.


“Absolutely, you hear the dominant seventh chords of F-sharp (on C-sharp) but not a definite key. This passage ‘stalls’ in a hexatonic fragment in measures 14 and 15. The ‘whole-tone scale’ is a prime example of a tonal area without a center due to the symmetry of the notes. None of these notes acts as a focal point. Debussy frequently employs this constellation, especially during transitions between tonal areas that do have a center. Now, let’s look at what happens in the second part: the dominant seventh chord of C-sharp (or D-flat) returns in measures 21 to 23, ultimately leading to a fragment with parallel harmony that we can hear in the key of D-flat in measures 29 to 31. However, this key isn’t reached through fundamental modulation, as would happen in a tonal context; it’s ‘placed’ or ‘set’ as in a montage technique we know from film. In that sense, the key is anecdotal and not fundamental. But it is consistent! The C-sharp (or D-flat, in equal temperament, which Debussy clearly employs, is the difference between these notes purely a matter of notation, not of sound) is the missing note from the basic key of D-minor. In the closing of the Prelude, that C-sharp suddenly appears from ‘Plus lent’, using the main motif of the triplet. In doing so, Debussy creates a synthesis between the key of D-minor and the tone-area of C-sharp or D-flat major. He has effectively created a kind of ‘main form’.”


“I don’t quite understand why you call this modulation ‘not fundamental’ even though it’s ‘consistent’ in your view,” I said.


“Debussy could have chosen another deviating tonal area and applied it consistently, but that choice remains anecdotal. Deviation in a tonal composition is always connected to the internal tonal principles, often the dominant or parallel key. Modulations in tonal composition are, therefore, fundamental. Of course, multiple choices are possible, and composers, especially Beethoven in the 19th century, increasingly explore the boundaries of the system. Still, modulation using what I now conveniently call the ‘montage principle’ is rare. Ultimately, a key can only be reached through a complete cadence, meaning the three functions that determine that key have sounded at some point. When using montage technique, that’s not necessary. Even in Wagner’s highly chromatic music, these principles remain unchanged. Although Debussy’s harmony is still based on chords constructed through tertian harmony, it is detached from tonal principles.”


“Can we then conclude that Debussy’s parallel harmony is embedded in his harmonic system differently than Beethoven’s?”

“Most certainly,” Ten Broddels said firmly. “In the slow movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 10 No. 3, the ‘Largo e mesto’, there is a fine example of this. Before the end, there is an extended passage of parallel harmony based on six-four chords and diminished seventh chords built upon a chromatically rising bassline. The entire passage functions as an ‘internal divertimento’ integrated into a cadence.”


Ten Broddels went back into his house and returned with a volume of Beethoven sonatas under his arm.


“See,” he said, flipping through the pages, “the cadence from measure 64 to 65 is a reprise of that in measure 24 and 25. But measure 65 doesn’t come in until measure 76; the section from measure 65 to 75 is an addition, within the cadence, therefore it’s called an ‘internal divertimento’. In principle, that entire section could be omitted, and you wouldn’t notice. However, it’s not there for no reason; there are compositional-structural reasons for it. This slow movement is typically based on the ‘song form’, a purely formal structure without ‘content’. Two full phrases already form a ‘simple song form’. Beethoven sought a way to connect a musical content to this formal structure in a non-anecdotal manner. He did this by applying elements from the ‘main form’, which does have musical content, to the song form. The musical content from the ‘main form’ is based on the contrast between the two themes, each in its own key. That’s essential. Both themes are presented in the ‘exposition’, confronted with each other in the ‘development’ through modulations and variations, and in the ‘recapitulation’, this leads to a synthesis, symbolized by the fact that both themes are now in the main key. In the song form, Beethoven cannot use the development section because that would eliminate the song form. So, he looks for other ways to achieve that synthesis. This ‘internal divertimento’ is one of those methods. It involves a kind of processing we would typically see in the development.”


“But such an ‘internal divertimento’ is still a form of montage technique, isn’t it?” I asked, “because it’s added to the cadence.”

“In a sense, that’s true, but the essential difference with Debussy’s montage technique is that this added fragment is structurally part of the cadence. It’s a technique that is part of the tonal language and doesn’t undermine that language. Debussy’s montage technique does. The same goes for his use of parallel harmony; in this Prelude, we see several examples of it.
 But before we delve into this further, I need to explain something else first. I mentioned earlier that one of the techniques undermining tonality is that of multilayering. Here, we have a good example of it. When you analyze the piece correctly, you can see that it is based on five different layers. First: the note D, rhythmically based on a half note. This half note D can be found in the majority of the measures. Sometimes, from that D, a parallel movement begins, and the half note becomes a descending triad; it’s a variation of the first layer. Second: the triplet motif with ascending seconds. Variations of it are also heard, but the D-E, E-F motif is the most common. Third: the melody that starts in measure 2, with several variations. Fourth: the chromatic motif with a fifth or fourth leap, in quarter notes, in the bass (see measure 8). Fifth: the ‘faux-bourdon’ movement starting from ‘un tendre et triste regret’. This appears only once. You can also consider this fifth layer a synthesis of the parallel triads of the first layer, and the quarter notes of the fourth layer. The layers are independent but not separate from each other.”


“Uhm… I don’t quite understand. Don’t you hear that all these layers form one whole? Even in the music of Beethoven and other tonal compositions, you can distinguish between a melody and accompaniment, two layers that go together.”


“The layers in this Prelude certainly form one whole, as I said, but not in the same way as a melody and accompaniment in tonal composition. In tonal music, it’s the bass line that holds everything together; melody and accompaniment form a single whole. If we examine the melodic layer in the Prelude more closely, we see, firstly, that the melody always begins and ends on a weak beat, and secondly, it is not divided into equal metrical lengths. These melodies are not based on a succession of equal measures that support the cadence, as in tonal music. The harmony below does not support it, nor vice versa. These are two independent layers that can still be perceived as a whole due to the notes on which both layers are based, all fitting within the employed tonal structure, in this case, D-minor. Or something in the sonic area around C-sharp or D-flat. So, the relationship between the layers is consistent but not fundamental.”


I understood it better but wasn’t completely convinced, so I asked, “Does this exploration around Debussy now illustrate the whole issue of Beethoven’s ‘Arresting Advantage’? I find it an excellent example, brilliantly found even, but if you want to thoroughly prove the hypothesis, more needs to be brought to the table. But I still have Webern to look forward to.”

Webern — Symphony opus 21

Ten Broddels placed the score of Anton Webern’s Symphony, Op. 21 in front of us, along with a musical example consisting of two chords positioned around the note A. I will insert this musical example somewhere below because it effectively illustrates the crux of his argument.


“The symphony is orchestrated for ten voices, two clarinets, two horns, four string parts, and a harp, which I consider as two voices because of the two hands,” he began. “However, in the work’s arrangement, at most four voices are sounding simultaneously, distributed across the ten ‘instruments’. The four canon voices consist of a double canon, two canons, each following the twelve-tone series. The way these series are played by the instruments is also ‘serially’ structured. The first five notes of the beginning series are played by the second horn, followed by the first five played by the first clarinet. The first horn and the bass clarinet do the same with their series. The harp starts a different series, followed by two pizzicato notes in the cellos, and the canonical consequence of this also begins with the harp, followed by two pizzicato notes in the violas.”

“The note E-flat/D-sharp occurs twice, and in different octaves,” I said in surprise. “I thought octaves were forbidden in that dodecaphonic style? There are now thirteen notes, not twelve. Or am I seeing it wrong?”


“No, you’re seeing it correctly,” Ten Broddels replied. “However, this is not the series that is used but rather the ‘vertical’ structure. That octave will never sound as an interval. Webern wanted to use the note A as a kind of center and, alongside it, a symmetrical structure of two sets of six notes. A lies exactly between E-flat and D-sharp, at a tritone distance, which is half an octave.”


“Yes, I’m familiar with that principle. You count in small seconds, which allows you to assign values to all intervals. A minor second has a value of 1. The octave is then assigned a value of 12, and the tritone gets a value of 6, precisely half of that.”


Ten Broddels nodded approvingly and continued, “What matters is the total sound. This only pertains to the ‘exposition’ of the first movement, the first 25 measures. What we see is that only these notes can sound. So if one of the voices has an E, it’s always the E at the top of the treble clef staff. The only A that can sound is the one in the middle, just below the central C. Thus, in essence, that entire passage sounds as one chord, although it never sounds as a whole. It’s a bit like a kaleidoscope; by turning it, you can select from a limited number of patterns, you never see the whole but only part of one ultimate construction. There is no harmonic motion; the harmony stands still, and the suggested movement through the canons is a form of ‘auditory illusion’.”


“In other words, if I understand you correctly, music from roughly the beginning of the 20th century has become one-dimensional. Depth has disappeared and can only be suggested through anecdotes. You write somewhere that only ‘borrowed drama’ exists. A friendly term for ‘stolen’. But if this is true, can this music still be rich?”

“Rich and meaningful. But at the same time, as flat as a dime. You could compare that fragment from Webern’s symphony to Yves Klein’s ‘Monotone Silence-Symphony’ and John Cage’s ‘4:33’. The ultimate harmonic poverty. But even Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ articulates mainly what it is not: it is not a Beethoven symphony, there is no ‘development’ (in a harmonic sense, of course, which is the essence of a sonata form), and that one modulation at the end serves as a kind of ‘reductio ad absurdum’.


And then there’s the opposite direction, towards an excess of layers and information, as in the music of the so-called ‘New Complexity’, but also in ‘Noise Rock’. Ultimately, it all leads to the same conclusion: noise is stagnation.


Initially, I focused on Beethoven’s ‘Arresting Advantage’ in the music of the generation of composers immediately after him, but you can indeed extend it further. This metaphor can be applied at various levels in the development of music. In recent years, my focus has been on what I’ve called ‘the rise and fall of voice-leading rules’, but that’s a larger story. Perhaps we’ll talk about that later.”

Anecdotes

We decided to interrupt the interview with a lunch break. Ten Broddels had made homemade garlic bread soup, ‘Tourin’, which we enjoyed with cheese, bread, and a tomato salad. By now, it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and the temperature in the shade had risen above thirty degrees, it was expected to reach thirty-five degrees around four o’clock. Occasionally, a sound resembling a machine gun could be heard, loud and nearby. Ten Broddels said it was a woodpecker pecking on a pine tree, looking for its lunch. Besides the woodpecker and the occasional passing car, it was otherwise completely silent.


“Are you absolutely against anecdotes, or can you still appreciate them?” I asked at one point, after refilling my glass with red Bergerac wine. “If so, what is the funniest or most interesting one you can remember?”


Ten Broddels had just taken a sip of white wine; as he explained, he couldn’t tolerate red due to the tannins. This was, in itself, an anecdote. He needed to think for a while. The first example that eventually came to mind was actually inappropriate, but, as he said, he decided to tell it anyway, not to be uncooperative, even though the anecdote was too lame for words. 


“The following anecdote is unsuitable to tell; it was very funny when it happened, but as a story, it doesn’t work at all. Some anecdotes only work when they happen in real time. The purest form, really, entirely private. Comparable to practical jokes, I suppose; slipping on a banana peel actually only works in reality, not in a story.”

Ten Broddels seemed visibly embarrassed as he began: “I was in a car with a good friend, also a student of Louis [Andriessen — JCdV], on our way to the new conservatory building. When we were near the new building, he asked if everything had already been moved there. At that moment, a moving truck from the company ‘DES’ passed us, with large letters painted on the truck. ‘Yes, almost,’ I replied, ‘just a few things left. Look, there goes the Des [‘Des’ means ‘D-flat’ in Dutch].’ It was very funny at the time, we both burst into laughter, but now, as I tell it here, I feel nothing.”


“Well,” I said, “I still find it quite funny! I can picture it.” 


“That’s because you were raised well. 
 It’s irrelevant and, moreover, ineffective. But another anecdote comes to mind now, which is suitable to tell. I do know more anecdotes, but they involve only my friends, and I believe they should at least involve me as well. This one is related to a trip to Berlin in the mid-1980s.” 


“The wall was still standing, I assume?” 


“Yes, we traveled by bus, right through East Germany. We weren’t allowed to stop along the way.” 
 He took a few sips of wine, presumably to fortify himself, as he appeared visibly uncomfortable. 


“It was a concert tour of the Hoketus group; they had a concert in Berlin, and ‘Bint’ was also on the program. ‘Bint’ and ‘Hoketus’, that was the program. After a long bus ride, we arrived, greeted by soldiers with machine guns. Very surreal!”

I nodded encouragingly, as skilled psychotherapists often can do. He waved his hand in the air for a moment, I was unsure if it was a gesture of acceptance or disapproval, probably somewhere in between, and then he continued obediently.


“Once we were at the hotel, it turned out that one of the parents of one of the pianists had passed away, and he had to fly home immediately. Then the whole group turned to me. ‘You play the piano too, don’t you?’ I tried to get out of it. I called Louis, asking if he could come over. He laughed and said, ‘You can play that part perfectly, and it’s good for you.’ So I walked around Berlin with the group, visiting all the sights, with the Hoketus part in my pocket. When we were sitting somewhere, I would play it in my head. The next day, we went to East Berlin, and at the border, we had to exchange our West German Marks into worthless East Marks, which we had to spend entirely. I still have Mao’s collected works from that exchange. And a petrol lighter. On the way there, we took the S-Bahn, passing through closed, deserted stations where grass was growing between the platform tiles. We decided to go up the Rundfunk tower, where there was a revolving restaurant at the top. We waited in line for a long time, but finally, we were seated at a table. I took off my coat and hung it on the back of my chair, and I wanted to go to the restroom. Immediately, a soldier with a drawn machine gun rushed towards me, barking ‘SITZEN BLEIBEN!!’”


The soldier’s metallic voice, by the way, reminded me of the announcer’s voice on the platform of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, where I arrived by train in my twenties, only to depart five minutes later. Heading to Copenhagen and Oslo. ‘BITTE EINSTEIGEN UND TÜREN SCHLIEßEN!! WIR WÜNSCHEN IHNEN EINE GUTE REISE!!’ Same tone, it was no longer a wish, but a command.


Hamburg. That’s where the camp where my father was held prisoner was located. But it wasn’t just ‘a’ camp. KZ Neuengamme consisted of over eighty smaller camps, with the main camp in Hamburg but dozens of associated camps in the region around that city. The names of these camps form part of the text of Blood I. In the main camp, twenty Jewish children were held as guinea pigs for the experiments of Dr. Kurt Heissmeyer — let’s make this man immortal. Heissmeyer conducted experiments on these children in an attempt to find a cure for tuberculosis. I have seen photos of a little boy holding his arm up. Under his armpit, there was a hole where Heissmeyer had removed a lymph node for his experiments. Heissmeyer conducted these experiments without the knowledge of the Nazi authorities in Berlin. After Hitler had ended his life, and the war was effectively ending, Heissmeyer realized he needed to cover his tracks. All twenty children were hanged in the toilets of a former school on Bulenhuser Damm. Another doctor, Dr. Alfred Trzebinsky, administered morphine to the children, ‘a humanitarian act’, as he defended himself during his post-war trial. Wait…” Ten Broddels went inside the house.


A moment later, he returned with his laptop. After opening it and quickly finding a specific file, he quoted a short excerpt from it, from the trial of Trzebinsky. The trial also discussed the roles of SS-Rottenführer Johann Frahm, SS-Oberscharführer Ewald Jauch, and SS-Obersturmführer Arnold Strippel, all four of whom were responsible for executing the children.

Chairman (of the court): The children were hanged one by one? 

Frahm: Two at a time.

Chairman: So two were pulled over the (drain) pipe at the same time?

Frahm: The adults were pulled over the pipe. The children were hung on hooks. 

Chairman: How many children were hung on those hooks at the same time? 

Frahm: One. 

Chairman: Not two? 

Frahm: There were two hooks.

“This is from Volume 1 of the Neuengamme Trial, shortly after the war. Later, Frahm answers the question about whether Strippel was also present: ‘Yes, he was there.’ Strippel escaped punishment; he was sentenced to three years for something else but also received a substantial sum of money due to lost income during his detention in the 1980s. Trzebinsky was executed, as were Frahm and Jauch. Heissmeyer was only held accountable twenty years later. During his trial, he stated that he believed the prisoners should not be considered full-fledged beings, and there was no difference between people and animals when it came to conducting experiments. He later corrected himself; he didn’t mean ‘people and animals’, but ‘Jews and animals’.”


Ten Broddels closed his laptop and stared at the two linden trees for a few minutes. I remained silent, waiting for him to speak again. After bringing his laptop inside and returning with a new cigar, he said:


“The most challenging part is dealing with an unjustified sense of guilt: I experience the pain, but I didn’t go through that suffering myself. There’s no way my pains could compare to those of my father. And this was made abundantly clear, both directly and indirectly. I understood very well that the sense of guilt was unjustified, but it neither prevented nor diminished it. — ‘To the fourth generation’.”


We finished the remnants of our lunch in silence. “The names of the twenty children are also a part of the text of Bloed I,” Ten Broddels suddenly said. “Is that anecdotal? That would be maddening. I mean, my text, of course.”


I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. After a few uncomfortable minutes, I said, mainly to break the painful silence: “Well, my request for an anecdote wasn’t so innocent, it seems…” He remained silent, so I decided to ask a question: “You say ‘unjustified’ guilt, which shows your powerlessness. That’s not something to be ashamed of, it seems to me.”


“From a rational perspective, all of this is crystal clear, but it’s anything but rational,” he replied. “That’s why I used that Exodus passage in Bloed. The samples in the bass layer are the words of God, spoken with my voice and processed in about ten layers. The voice of God was a significant thing in my youth.

The song I wrote based on the text from Vergil’s Bucolica, in which a child is encouraged to smile at its parents, because otherwise no God invites him to his feast, and no Goddess in her bed, I had my children sing and recorded it, and also incorporated it into the samples. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so close to my own life in any other piece. But it still deals with a universal issue, about how the struggles of fathers are inherited by their children. That’s a public matter. The personal anecdote was merely the trigger.”


“This sounds a bit defensive, you don’t have to justify yourself, do you?” I said.


“No, but we were in the process of examining the phenomenon of the ‘anecdotal’,” he replied.


“Yes, indeed. Maybe it’s a good time to talk about your time in college?” I suggested.


“No, you still have the punchline of my anecdote to hear. It got overshadowed during that detour through Hamburg,” he said.


A faint smile had actually appeared on his face. I responded with a smile and said, “Oh, please, go on!”


“So, I had studied that part whenever I had the opportunity during our sightseeing trips, cafes, and rides on the U-Bahn were excellent for that purpose, and then the only rehearsal came where I had a chance to put my diligent study into practice. I positioned myself with my Fender piano just behind the other pianist in my group — as you know, the ensemble was divided into two equal groups of six players — so I could watch his timing. That’s called parroting.


I agreed with the sound engineer (all instruments were electronically amplified) on a sign that he could mute my sound when I got lost for a moment. I would keep playing, but no one would hear my fumbling. We were just behind our instruments when an unexpected ZDF television crew walked in. I had a camera right on my hands during the only rehearsal I was allowed. Now here’s the kicker, I had meticulously learned all my notes, a matter of good counting, but over the years, the band had developed its own timing, it was swinging, and then counting is a lot less helpful. I got off track at times, but luckily, I managed to follow most of it well. The final part, where that continuous melody is played, was the most challenging for me. Fortunately, the communication with the sound engineer worked perfectly.”


I laughed. “Still a funny anecdote.”


“Now that I think back on this, every time I was on stage, it led to such anecdotes. I don’t belong there.”


“Ah, so there are more stories like this, let’s hear them!” I said.


“Well, I’d better not. I’ve displayed my clumsiness sufficiently,” he replied.


“Alright, let’s finally talk about your early days at the conservatory then…”

Start of the study period

He told me that he was in the military from early May 1974 until late October 1975, eventually serving as a sergeant telegraphist. The first nine months were spent in Ede, where he was trained as a telegraphist, and the following nine months in a barracks in The Hague. He worked in the old bunker of Seyss-Inquart in Clingendael and could sleep at his parents’ home.


“I was hardly ever at that barracks, only when I had a ‘watch-duty’ weekend. I had a daily shift in the bunker, and there were three types of shifts: daytime, evening, and night shifts. I can’t remember exactly when I was admitted to the conservatory, but I think it was in June 1974. I do remember that I was granted a day off to go from Ede to The Hague for the entrance exam. I was incredibly nervous. I had to take an ear test with a group of other candidates, a dictation, if I remember correctly, maybe some ‘sight-reading’, and also answer some theoretical questions. ‘What’s the difference between meter and rhythm’ is the only question I can recall. Fortunately, I had bought and studied a booklet on ‘General Music Theory’. After the exam, I was met by Dick Raaijmakers. He could see my uncertainty and told me not to worry; I would definitely be accepted. He also arranged a meeting with Jan van Vlijmen, the director. He told me that Otto Ketting would be my composition teacher. Once I was discharged, I would be admitted to the main study. I had exactly one meeting with Ketting. He advised me to buy a score of a piece I liked, listen to a recording of it, and try to follow along with the score. After that, he resigned as a teacher. Then, Van Vlijmen became my composition teacher. The head of my department in the bunker, a civilian by the way, did everything to help me with my studies, particularly through the duty schedule.

The evening and night shifts were especially convenient for this. With an evening shift, I could attend classes during the day at the conservatory, and during a night shift, I had the option to choose when to study: either on the day of the shift, the day after, or both. The night shift was rather insignificant. You were assigned a cell with a bed. You only had to get up at three o’clock in the morning for an exchange of messages with Suriname. But often, the officer on duty was fine with letting you sleep. In the morning, you would just write that there had been no message traffic due to ‘atmospheric disturbances’. It was, by the way, the time when Suriname was becoming independent. Most of the messages I received or had to send were about descriptions of houses for the soldiers stationed in Suriname who would soon return to the Netherlands. Occasionally, there was a message in code, meaning it consisted of numbers only. The bunker was part of a ‘generals’ barracks’, which meant an excellent lunch during the noon break.


Despite the relatively comfortable last nine months, I experienced my military service as traumatic. Especially the training in Ede was a horror. There was a sergeant major who had it in for me, probably mostly because of my long hair; I wore it down to my shoulders. Due to actions by the VVDM, the soldiers’ union, cutting hair was no longer mandatory. I did have to wear a hairnet occasionally, for safety with certain equipment. That sergeant once tried to turn my roommates against me. ‘We know what to do with a pansy like him!’ He wanted them to shave my head. Fortunately, my buddies also found the man to be a ‘dick’. The word ‘dick’ was a favorite term in the service. A ‘horse’s dick’ was a snack called frikandel speciaal, and a ‘bear’s dick’ was a half tent that you had to carry on your back during a march or field exercise. In short, it was the most lousy time of my life.” Ten Broddels reached for the wine bottle.


He mentioned that during his service in The Hague in the preparatory year, he attended a theory class alongside composition lessons with Van Vlijmen by appointment. After the summer of 1975, he was placed in the first year of the composition program. Van Vlijmen arranged for him to be placed in Hein Kien’s theory class, not only an excellent teacher but also a very sympathetic man.


“The theory class I took with Hein Kien was called ‘Algemene Theoretische Vorming’ [ATV — General Music Theory] and lasted for three and a half hours,” Ten Broddels said. “The class had five students. The lesson included Analysis, Harmony, and Ear Training (dictations). Analysis was considered the core of it, and the other subjects were support subjects for that analysis. The theory class itself was considered a support subject for the main subject, that’s why the classes were divided with students who played similar instruments, so they could study compositions from their repertoire. Not only solo pieces, of course, a group of string players could also examine string quartets, woodwind players wind quintets, singers songs or choral works. But larger ensembles were not forgotten, of course. The theory lesson was thus brought closer to the main subject than had previously been the case.


Every lesson, Hein Kien started with a brief summary of the previous lesson. He used a tiny notebook with notes for that. His analyses were insightful, focused on the musical content without any hermeneutic nonsense but embedded in a broader context. When we began to study the ‘Tristan-Ouverture’, he started by talking about Schopenhauer. In the second year, he asked which pieces we wanted to analyze. Everyone mentioned their favorite pieces, which he noted. He kept asking for more pieces, occasionally made suggestions himself, and eventually, he had so many titles that he could distill the list he had in his head. Then he explained what he had done and said with a broad smile, ‘This is called guided democracy.’ In ear training, he not only pointed out what you did wrong but also explained why. He said that everyone has a specific ear with its own acoustics. This explained why someone might confuse a perfect fourth with a quartal chord, for instance. A rich acoustic ear creates an additional tone. The ‘mistake’ is thus understandable and far from unmusical.


Kien was also involved in the well-being of his students. I remember one time when he went into town to find a student who had ‘lost it’. At one point, we had a Chilean student who had fled the Pinochet regime. The young man didn’t have enough talent, but Kien confided in me, ‘We can’t just send him away!’ He had been at the forefront, along with some colleagues, of building the ATV structure in the early 1970s, which was completely new because of the integral approach. He also always attended the concerts of the composition department.”


“Those were the famous ‘May Concerts’ you mentioned,” I said. “I’d like to hear more about them too.”

“Indeed, we can talk about that later. First, let me finish my story about that theory class, which wouldn’t last long.


As is almost always the case, valuable things turn out to be fragile, in this case mainly due to bureaucratic pressure. The ATV approach was gradually dismantled, partly because of the increasing budget cuts in education, larger groups, and less class time. Also, due to management’s need to reorganize the classes each year for scheduling reasons, the essence of the ATV approach was eroded. The ATV class lasted three years. If a student in the second year had to be placed in a different class, the curriculum from the first year would not align well with what the other class had studied. Therefore, the teaching material for all classes had to be standardized. This abandoned the core of the ATV concept. Even the examination method, which was initially determined per class, had to be made uniform.”

“Is this also an example of the Law of the Arresting Advantage?” I asked.


“No, I would say the opposite,” he replied.


“But it was a high-quality class, a significant improvement over the situation before, which was overtaken by something more primitive,” I said.


“I would say the ATV structure was the antithesis trying to replace the Arresting Advantage of the centuries-old previous situation. And it failed. The power of the Arresting Advantage was too great, there was too much mass behind it. This applied to the entire structure of new music. Both of these things were related. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

The Hague School

“This is a good time to talk about the ‘Haagse School’ [Hague School] I believe,” I said. I looked at Ten Broddels, and he nodded politely. “The ATV-structure and the May Concerts were fundamental parts of it, as I understand. What other elements played a significant role in that period? And over what period are we talking? Who exactly was involved?”


Ten Broddels gazed ahead pensively for a while. “Well, the ‘Haagse School’…” he said finally. Then he fell silent again.


I patiently waited. I knew about his aversion to this topic; he had always been ambivalent about that term. He had written several texts about it, which I was familiar with, but I wanted to hear a spontaneous comment.

“I never wanted to belong to anything as a child, I preferred to play alone in a corner with my Lego. At first, I only had one box of Lego, which could build a gas station, but I could spend hours with various new creations. When I got a second box, I felt like a king,” he said, lost in his past.


“The essence of what later became known as the ‘Haagse School’ essentially took place roughly from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, in a time when that term didn’t exist yet. It began with Kees van Baaren, the former director, and his composition class. I only know about it from stories; I never experienced Van Baaren. But I knew his students, Jan van Vlijmen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Peter Schat, and Louis Andriessen. Misha Mengelberg, I only knew from a few occasional encounters.


Then there was the next generation, including Gilius van Bergeijk and Diderik Wagenaar. But, most importantly, the outsider who, in my opinion, became the heart of that school was Dick Raaijmakers. When I started studying composition, he was the head of the department. He organized the May Concerts, which were a continuation of the so-called ‘Re-hearings’, but those were before my time.


The May Concerts that Dick programmed took place in the 1970s, and they were concerts where anything was possible. Compositions by students were performed, but also ‘classics’ of new music, avant-garde films — I remember a performance of Beckett’s ‘Not I’ and the Sad-movie ‘Tulips’. It’s a short film where you just watch a bunch of tulips. At one point, a leaf falls off, and the audience burst into laughter! But there were also premieres of compositions by our teachers. The first version of ‘Hoketus’ was performed there, without the final section with the continuous melody, using flutes instead of pan flutes and without saxophones. What was special about the concerts was that even less successful works by students gained added value through the whole atmosphere and programming. The venue was always packed. At some point, the fire department ordered them to count the visitors, and when the maximum of 200 was reached, the front door of the building was locked.

An important part of the school was the electronic studio, which was built by Dick Raaijmakers and Jan Boerman. Additionally, the Early Music department was established, inspired by the projects of Nicolaus Harnoncourt, initially about Monteverdi and later about Bach. The influence of early music practice on new music cannot be overstated. Not only were many musicians from the early music practice also involved in new music, I remember Frans Brüggen who, along with Louis Andriessen, played Andriessen’s ‘Melodie’ during a May concert. Brüggen was also involved in the opera ‘Reconstructie’. Perhaps even more crucial was the research into Baroque tunings. The mentality of both departments, early and new music practice, was the same: adventurous, inquisitive, curious, and open-minded. That is the core of what later became known as the ‘Haagse School’. It had nothing to do with a particular style of music; it was about an attitude. In addition to Dick Raaijmakers, Jan van Vlijmen played a crucial role in this, making everything possible.


In 1981, in the new building, the Institute of Sonology was added. This institute was originally in Utrecht. I once spent a day there experimenting with computers because I was developing computer techniques for my compositions. The machines they had there at the time still used tapes, which were much slower than the computer my father had purchased, which used drums with seven disks. A tape had to be rewound, so if information at the beginning of the tape had to be connected to data at the end, the entire tape had to be rewound. With a disk, the reader goes from the outside to the center much, much faster! The institute was divested by Utrecht University around 1980, and Van Vlijmen immediately brought it to the conservatory.”


In your most recent text about the ‘Haagse School’, you mentioned that the moment of moving to the new building on Koningin Julianalaan was one of the factors that contributed to the dismantling of that school. However, the Sonology department had just been incorporated.”


“The ‘dismantling’ is part of a longer process, and this was one of the moments that played a role, but certainly not the cause, if there is a single cause to be identified. For me, the most critical element that led to the end of that school was the naming of it. Instead of a praxis, where it was about subjects, it became an object. Something that was useful for marketing, both for the school and for the composers, especially around Louis Andriessen and the Hoketus group. This also led to impure and inconsistent thinking. It suddenly became about a style. I abhorred that.”


“But you also contributed to it; you might have been critical of the term, but you allowed yourself to be involved in it. Especially in the polemics of that time, for example, in interviews and program notes. You wouldn’t deny that, would you?”


“That is indeed true, mostly against my will, but the polemical situation at the time made it challenging for me to think clearly. Much was at stake. We were trying to develop a music practice where there was enough room for new ensembles. All the subsidies were then awarded to the orchestras. Those orchestras were genuinely stuck with the Law on the Arresting Advantage. New music was tolerated at best, often under pressure from the ministry. It all had to change structurally!”


“You used that term for ideological purposes, and you accepted impurities, is that a fair summary?”


“Don’t forget that I was about twenty-seven years old at the time, not exactly the age for staid and overly correct positions,” Ten Broddels grinned. “I now have much more distance and more knowledge. In recent years, especially thanks to my aesthetics class, I have come to more consistent insights. Nevertheless, I look back with great pleasure on that time!”

“In your text titled ‘Testament’, you refer to Hannah Arendt’s book ‘The Human Condition’, you quote a passage from her text on the ‘pure good’, and you link it to your hypothesis about a ‘pure art practice’. You initially use it to criticize the coining of the name ‘Haagse School’. I will provide the quote below, which will clarify it.”

When goodness appears openly, it is no longer goodness, though it may still be useful as organized charity or an act of solidarity. Therefore: “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.” Goodness can exist only when it is not perceived, not even by its author; whoever sees himself performing a good work is no longer good, but at best a useful member of society or a dutiful member of a church. Therefore: “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth”
[…]
Only goodness must go into absolute hiding and flee all appearance if it is not to be destroyed.

— Hannah Arendt, ‘The Human Condition’, quote from the IInd part, chapter 6: ‘The Social and the Private’.

“Then you write that, in that time when the name was not yet coined, ‘it concerned the practice of musicians who considered each other as subjects, [that] it was about the artistic act. It was not about each other but with each other. And that could certainly be accompanied by disagreements, strong criticism, and all the discomfort that comes with it, but always from subject to subject. The moment this practice was pinned to a name, the subjects became objects. And the school became an object with a purpose.’ Because that’s ultimately what concerns you, that a pure art practice is uninterested.”


“Absolutely. And this allowed a ‘style’ to be assigned to it. Especially ‘minimal’, ‘fortissimo,’ ’sound’, ‘European chromaticism’, and, of course, ‘anti-romantic’ became salonfähig. That this style label excluded a significant number of composers who were indeed considered part of that school at the same time was brushed off as an irrelevant detail. Only one thing mattered: establishing a brand name in the market.”


“But, on the other hand, isn’t it legitimate to have a different definition? At least, it seems perfectly defensible to me to see the figure of Andriessen as the center of that school. With the piece, and the group, Hoketus as the pièce de résistance. The name was coined precisely around this figure and this band. Also, the controversy surrounding this school is related to this. The fact that composers and musicians around this figure also felt connected to other composers at the conservatory doesn’t change this. The only inconsistency is wanting to include this group in that school.”


“I could do with a few more of those,” Ten Broddels sneered. “Of course, everyone is free to do with that term as they please, but some consistency should be observed. The move made by the recent head of the composition department, Jantina Drimpglad, by referring to a ‘Second Haagse School’, which she merely aimed at a number of former students of the department, turned the concept into a complete vacuum. It was half-and-half, supposedly meant to be ironic, but in the meantime, there is no longer any artistic and substantive context. Everyone is then ‘Haagse School’. And that’s exactly how marketing works. Substance is out of the question. My view of what the ‘Haagse School’ could be is consistent and linked to artistic content. The opinion you suggest is not, it is casual, empty, and above all, a means of commercial framing.”


“Yes, well… I mean, I didn’t know you would get angry!” I tried to appease him with an ironic bon mot.


He grinned. “I couldn’t care less about what everyone else does with that name. I’m concerned with something else: the difference between objectwise and subjectwise. With this pair of concepts, we can delineate some things that I consider to be of fundamental importance. This pair of concepts was also on our list, remember? In the text you just referred to, I devote a chapter to it.”


“You just mentioned ‘from subject to subject’ in relation to the Haagse School versus the concept of ‘object’ after the name was coined. I assume you’re referring to this? Let’s delve into this further,” I suggested.

Subjectwise versus Objectwise

“In your text, you first provide an example of a conversation between three people, illustrating how a critical comment from one of them directed at another can occur in a subjectwise or objectwise manner. Speaking about someone present in the conversation in the third person is objectwise because that person becomes an object. In the second person, it is subjectwise, as the person remains a subject. This is a clear distinction. You then argue that in a subjectwise action, the focus is on the action itself. It’s about the process. In an objectwise action, the focus is on the result. You provide examples of cooking and a concert. You further differentiate between ‘inventing’ and ‘discovering’, which leads to intriguing statements, although, in my view, it raises several questions. But first, let me quote a part of your text to make our discussion more concrete.”


“By the way, are we not losing the main thread of our argument here? We were discussing the ‘Haagse School’ and everything that went wrong in that regard. Now, we’re suddenly returning to the discussion of certain concepts. I did use these concepts to illustrate what went wrong, but that process is not fully and adequately described yet. However, it’s up to you; you’re the one writing the text.”


“I believe that discussing these concepts will help us clarify the process where everything went wrong. I agree that this can also be confusing, but life, like art, is not unambiguous.”

The concept of ‘discovery’ essentially denotes an objectwise view, as what is ‘discovered’ already exists; we just didn’t know it yet. The phenomenon ‘discovered’ is an object. When something is ‘invented’, it implies something that didn’t exist before. It is new and not so much an object but rather a concept, a way to perceive the world. An interesting question regarding a phenomenon attributed to Sigmund Freud (although this is factually incorrect; the concept already existed, but we use ‘Freud’ here as a metaphor) for clarification: Did humans have a subconscious before Freud? If you answer this question affirmatively, then Freud ‘discovered’ the subconscious. But if you answer it negatively, then he ‘invented’ it. In that case, it becomes a perspective for studying the human psyche, an integral part of language, a way of thinking. In the realm of psychological topics, this difference in perspective is conceivable, but the question is whether it is also applicable to physical matters. For example, the circulatory system. William Harvey is considered the discoverer of the circulatory system, and his theory radically changed our understanding of the heart. Up until the moment Harvey presented his theory, the theory of the Greek/Roman physician Claudius Galen had been accepted for fifteen hundred years, which was based on the belief in four bodily humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. In the sixteenth century, it became clear that humans have a closed circulatory system, although the function of blood had not been articulated at that time. An essential part of blood is its role in transporting oxygen, which was discovered only in the eighteenth century.

The least we can say about this issue is that different times have seen different ways of discussing what we now consider the physical elements of our bodies. Who can say with certainty that terms like ‘heart attack’ or ‘cancer’ will not have fundamentally different meanings or definitions in a few generations? In recent years, we have experienced how the Covid virus has turned our medical and legal thinking upside down. A virus has proven to be a far more complex phenomenon, not an ‘object’, as it involves not only medical but also legal and constitutional factors. Furthermore, the virus cannot be separated from the issue of climate change. The virus goes beyond purely physical problems; it has become a part of our lives, thoughts, and language. A purely objectwise approach has proven to be an illusion. Without completely discarding all objectwise remedies, such as the development of vaccines and research into the virus’s operation, we must acknowledge that a subjectwise approach is also indispensable.

We must be willing to let go of our unyielding, ‘sacred’ principles and learn to think in a visionary way. This applies to all aspects of our lives, not just healthcare but also science, education, and, indeed, art. The advantage of art is that it already contains the seed of this visionary thinking — or at least it did, because we are rapidly dismantling this subjectwise way of thinking (playing!). Perhaps we can discern a fundamental element of my practiced praxis in this context.

“The distinction you make is clear to me, and I understand that you do not categorically reject an objectwise approach. You give a few examples: certain etiquettes, like in parliament, and the preparations of elite athletes. Do you have a specific method or strategy in mind for how we should deal with or evaluate the difference between these approaches?”


“I don’t have a ready-made instruction manual for this, which would be an objectwise approach as if the difference between both approaches could be determined using a sort of recipe book. I would say that this pair of concepts provides us with a tool to analyze actions, and then a judgment can be made in each specific case. Let’s take music education as an example, as I can speak from my experience.

The education I received in the 1970s I call ‘subjectwise’. It was not about meeting pre-defined ‘competencies’, as they have been calling them for years now, but about personal artistic development that suited your talents and creativity. This didn’t mean that everything was possible and casual; on the contrary, the offering of lessons was well thought out. However, through the subjectwise teaching approach, you understood that some things that were offered, even when it wasn’t immediately clear why, were worth exploring because this knowledge wasn’t an object; it was part of a process of learning and understanding. It’s about trust, which I believe is a core concept in education. In the Romantic era, this was called Bildung, a holistic form of education.
 When I started teaching myself, there was a growing objectwise element in music theory education starting in the 1990s. I was a music theory teacher. 


This had to do with the increasing need for uniformity in the curriculum. This included the introduction of a course called General Music Theory. I was strongly against it. Courses are inherently objectwise. There is a clear goal, a well-defined method, and clear assessment. I am not necessarily against course-based education. For example, if you want to learn touch typing, that’s a great method. You learn where the keys are and when to press them. In formative education, you also learn where the keys are but, in addition, why those keys exist, and whether they should exist or not, and if you actually want to press them. This education is transcendental. General Music Theory is part of the overarching subject of Analysis. Of course, within that framework, certain concepts and definitions are used — let’s call them ‘keys’ — but they are only relevant for concepts that are a significant part of the analysis. They are important because they are used frequently. How can you talk about harmony without understanding the term ‘leading tone’? You don’t need to learn this in a separate course; you learn it naturally by engaging with harmony. So what did we see in that music theory course? A question on a test: What is the word ‘leading tone’ in Italian? I wouldn’t know, I don’t want to know, but if I had to know it, I’d look it up. A day before the music theory test, the students knew all the terms, but a week later, they had forgotten them.


An accompanying problem is that due to this course-like thinking in the educational approach, the entire lesson package has to be locked into a completely rigid curriculum. There are then ‘lesson objectives’, ‘teaching methods’, ‘lesson dates’, ‘academic literature’, ‘assessment methods’, and of course, ‘study credits’. The students are considered ‘consumers’ who sign a contract binding them to this whole shebang, and, as a gesture of goodwill, they are expected to participate in a ‘student satisfaction survey’ every year, with a new microwave oven in the cafeteria as their reward. Hail progress!


An objectwise approach demands a strict list of regulations and, of course, a control system to monitor compliance with that list. A subjectwise approach cannot function with such a list because it would frustrate any innovation, improvisation, adventure, and creativity. What kind of art education is that going to produce, and what art will we experience from that sterile objectwise thinking?


I remember a meeting of the theory department where it was proposed that we should be guinea pigs for such an approach. We were told that we worked ‘input-oriented’ rather than ‘output-oriented’. We were required to formulate ‘partial outputs’ for our lessons first and build our lessons from there. I said I wanted to retain the freedom to spontaneously talk about Hamlet for a whole lesson.”


“What do these two concepts, ‘input- and output-oriented’ teaching, exactly entail?” I asked.


“‘Input-oriented’ starts with the lesson content you want to convey. ‘Output-oriented’ means that you primarily consider how and what the student uses to acquire that knowledge.”


“Ah. That last part should be part of your lessons, shouldn’t it, and isn’t it contradictory to the content?”


Of course, there is no contradiction. A fundamental principle of a subjectwise approach is that it is, as mentioned, transcendental. This means that you incorporate the entire context of what you want to convey and how to do it into a comprehensive approach.


To ‘keep a long story long’: there are things that require a subjectwise approach, and they, therefore, deserve it. There are also things where an objectwise approach suffices. However, there is no reflection on the difference and on which lessons should employ one or the other approach. The structuring of education is objectwise because it’s in the hands of managers. Managers can only think in terms of objects and have no understanding of transcendental ways of working.”


“Coming back to the topic of the end of the ‘Haagse School’, I now understand that it was related to the increasing dominance of an objectwise approach. Adventure and play gradually disappeared from the school. More and more things were nailed down, partly due to government requirements, such as accreditation regulations. We see this development in education as a whole, as well as in healthcare and science. One could say that it’s part of the Zeitgeist, a consequence of neoliberal policies, rather than an issue originating solely from the school itself. Or am I mistaken?”


“Of course, the conservatory is not an isolated entity; education and art policies have a significant impact. However, the way in which the school, the management, the teachers, and the students allowed themselves to be led like docile sheep to the slaughter is extremely disappointing.


This also applies to artists who were confronted with similarly disastrous policies in the subsidy system. The problem there is that the larger ensembles have essentially become institutions, with a management that specializes in meeting the required subsidy conditions. They fought for their ‘own business’, as Reinbert de Leeuw put it when he called me the day after my action at the MuziekGebouw, and I asked him what had changed since the 1980s. ‘Back then, we had one ideal; we were fighting against the establishment, there was the Vietnam War.’ When I was in court for my appeal at the Council of State, not a single colleague of mine was present. Zero composers, zero musicians, or representatives of the ensembles. Except for two of my students. That was telling. They didn’t have to do anything, just be present. It would have meant something in the direction of the delegation from the Fund I was litigating against. The complete emptiness also meant something; the Fund could continue its course undisturbed. Kant calls this ‘impuritas’, ‘the second evil’. ‘I know something’s wrong, but I can’t do anything about it.’ It’s laziness, indifference, and ignorance.”


“If I may play devil’s advocate, hasn’t it always been this way? The protest movement of the 1960s and 1970s was an exception, an extraordinary time. Even the radical variant of Romanticism was short-lived, lasting at most a few decades at the end of the eighteenth century. Kant is of course right, and we call this the ‘human condition’.”


“That doesn’t make it okay. If you take this argument as hyperbole, then Eichmann was right in his trial; he couldn’t help it. And don’t bring up the term Godwin; Godwin would certainly approve of this comparison.”

“You can be quite relentless at times; that doesn’t seem healthy…”


”I often heard in the department that I was ‘too principled’, that I needed to learn to arrange things ‘under the table’ a bit more. They called it ‘going with the flow’.”


“Is that completely wrong? Dealing with power demands a playful attitude; it’s all a game.”


“That leads us to another pair of concepts that I proposed earlier as a topic of conversation: truth versus power. That is a difficult subject.”


“Alright, but let’s first conclude this topic of object versus subject. Is there anything else we need to discuss on this?”


“Let’s do that by wrapping up the issue of the ‘Haagse School’. What I mentioned earlier about the end of the ATV structure, namely that it was not so much a matter of the ‘braking the lead’ but rather a matter of too much mass compared to that lead, I think also applies to the issue of the ‘Haagse School’. And that brings me back to Romein’s law. Perhaps there is a greater hidden power behind it. Let’s investigate that now.

Romein makes an interesting comment at the beginning of his essay. An important element of that essay is the phenomenon of historiography. The tension between factual, ‘objective’ aspects, and their interpretation by the ‘subjective’ historian. Here’s a brief quote:

This idea, which I’ve expressed in a motto: ‘Do not believe what historians say, but also do not believe that they say it groundlessly’; the thought that I now call the ‘unfinished past’. This revolving aspect of the unfinished, now illuminated by a different present each time, can also become the object of study. Personally, I know of no more fascinating spectacle than this struggle of humanity to understand its past, or more profoundly put, to find the meaning of its existence. It is precisely in this struggle that it realizes itself. From this perspective, I believe the question raised about the meaning of historical objectivity can only find an answer. It is the subject-object relationship with respect to the past that the majority of the studies and criticisms compiled here somehow address.

So Romein also juxtaposes these two concepts, which aligns perfectly with the distinction I proposed between objectwise and subjectwise. My thought is that it’s not the ‘Law of the Arresting Advantage’ that causes the antithesis and potential decline of the ‘higher’, but the shift from the primacy of the subjectwise to the objectwise; the latter then sets the law in motion. The subjectwise is vulnerable. The objectwise can afford itself a more primitive (or ‘lower’, or ‘backward’) foundation.”


“So are you saying that a subjectwise praxis cannot have a ‘Arresting Advantage’?” I asked.


“It seems that way now, yes. A subjectwise praxis is vulnerable, but not due to forces from within that praxis. It’s external forces that handicap the head start.”

Truth versus Power

“I suggest we now discuss the next topic you proposed, truth versus power,” I said. “You were continuously confronted with power, especially in the last years of your practice as a teacher. The power of management became more pronounced.”

“And equally in my practice as a composer. But there it was more abstract; within the school, it was personal. At one point, our department head, Jantina, had to take a course on ‘Leadership’. This sometimes led to surreal situations; she had to evaluate our work, something we, of course, refused. You’re sitting together in a pub, having heated discussions about what are good and bad notes, about love, life, and death, and then suddenly you find yourself in a distant formal relationship. The last remnants of the ‘Haagse School’ naturally did not allow for this, but the future suddenly became crystal clear. This is where we were heading.”


“You were good friends, as I understand, even more than that.” I saw him stiffen. “What on earth happened?”


“Well, before your imagination gets the best of you, Jantina loved ladies, not gentlemen.” He looked at me questioningly. “I still don’t fully understand what happened. I’m still thinking about it. In any case, something astounding, something I hadn’t considered possible. Let’s delve into this further later when discussing the topic ‘Friendship’.”

“I absolutely meant nothing inappropriate,” I hurried to say. “I was referring to a special, collegial bond that went beyond the purely professional. But, okay, we can discuss this later. Now, on the current topic, what do you understand by truth?”


“I’ve written several texts on it and had them read by friendly colleagues. I can’t say I received much support. Most of the time, there was no response or an evasive reaction. Sometimes the feedback was substantive but consistently dismissive. Most of them believe that truth is an articulation of the political. It emerges, or can emerge, in a political stance or action. The concept of ‘politics’ should be understood broadly: what is part of the practice in the ‘polis’.”


“But what was the specific criticism of your argumentation? On what basis was the rejection of your principles founded?” I asked.


“I wouldn’t call it ‘criticism’ in the proper sense, no critical refutation of my arguments. It was more of a confrontation with different arguments or a different perspective on the concept of truth, embedded in what I previously indicated, a political context. Well, maybe they’re all right, and because of my preoccupations with Kant’s work, I’m just an outdated dinosaur. My problem is that I’m not academically educated at all; I’m a man of praxis. I just wasn’t taken seriously. Just like with my legal cases. And perhaps that’s fair, and I’m just a mediocre, old — what do they call it nowadays? — a white cisgender macho man. I’m weird. At the very least, something not quite right.”

“That sounds quite depressing. You feel disillusioned, betrayed,” I said, consciously steering the conversation. Well, it’s all part of the interview, right?


“I texted about this with a former student, with whom I also have a painful history. He replied, ‘Don’t be depressed — Be tragic.’”


“Nonetheless, let’s still look at your view of the concept of ‘truth’. If I understood correctly from your texts on this, the core concept is ‘disinterestedness’. You derived this from Kant’s notion of the ‘beautiful’. The ‘beautiful’ is not tied to an interest; no one has an interest in finding a particular rose ‘beautiful’. The judgment of beauty is not connected to desire.”


“Exactly. I won’t repeat this story for the umpteenth time here. But I thought what applies to the ‘artistic quality judgement’ — a term I prefer to use rather than ‘beauty’ — might also apply to ‘truth’. Who has an interest in the statement 1 + 1 = 2 being ‘true’? You might have an interest though in 1 + 1 = 3. Because 3 is more than 2. Perhaps that suits better. But it doesn’t serve the truth. Only if ‘truth’ is a concept linked to an interest, such as a political interest, would my starting point be invalid.”


“However, one could argue, 1 + 1 = 2 is a statement that is valid in the numerical system, a designed construct. What about truth in an existential domain, such as love, religion, or art? That becomes more complicated, it seems to me.”


“Yes, it certainly does! But, as I said, I won’t explain that here again. The only thing I want to discuss now is how, in my farewell as a teacher, truth was undermined by power. In other words, not from an abstract perspective but purely practical, at a formal level. Power works optimally when content is irrelevant.”

I did want to know more about his more ‘abstract’ ideas, but I decided to wait until he had elaborated on his confrontation with the management. The fact that his colleagues and friends were not interested in those ideas didn’t mean that I wasn’t. I wasn’t interested in a philosophical view of truth, but in his perspective on it. “Does this mean we’re going to discuss the theme of friendship now? Of course, in relation to the truth versus power theme.”


“No, I want to first unravel the core of that confrontation. We can figure out what this ultimately means for the concept of friendship afterward. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure yet, but through our conversation, we might discover it.”

“In the text you’ve titled ‘Testament’, you write about it. Both themes overlap there. You literally start with the following sentence: During a meeting with all the teachers of the department on October 7, 2019, I got to know my ‘friends’. And then you explain everything that happened. The theme of ‘betrayal’ is thus immediately addressed.”


“That’s indeed true, but now I want to keep those two aspects separate. A certain atmosphere had developed in the department, which I would describe as a ‘club of companionship’. It was no longer primarily about artistic or educational content in the department, but about how we dealt with it as a collective. There could be disagreements, but it wasn’t the content of those differences that took precedence, but the question of how we could remain ‘friends’ with each other. We’ll explore the exact meaning of that term ‘friend’ later.


Now, looking back at how the department functioned when I was a student, I notice the significant difference in the relationships between the teachers. There were certainly friendships back then, but they didn’t impede critical confrontations among them. I remember a heated discussion between Louis Andriessen and Peter Schat about a new notation that the latter had devised for a note duration with a value of 5. In that case, a dot had to be placed at the top of the stem. Louis thought it was nonsense because, in his view, the number 5 didn’t exist in music; it’s always a combination of 2 and 3. A fierce debate! Very instructive for the students. Even when they talked about each other, the comments were often harsh. Every Monday, the teachers went out to dinner together at the Indonesian restaurant Soeboer, just around the corner. Some students, including myself, were invited to join them. I heard quite a bit there… Differences in opinion were magnified in the true dialectical sense. In the department where I worked as a teacher from 2004 until early 2020, the interaction was anything but critical. There were certainly subjects raised that had different opinions, but never at the cutting edge; the peace had to be maintained and preserved. Ultimately, this is the kiss of death and opens the door wide for power games, at the expense of the ideal of truth. Jantina had become the ‘scout leader’ of a boy scouts club. And if one of the scouts did something wrong in her eyes, she would blow her whistle. Jantina the Pied Piper of The Hague.”


I suspect he noticed my furrowed brow because he asked, “What now? Do you think I’m exaggerating, being vindictive?”


“No, not vindictive,” I replied, “Your views are too serious and well-founded for that. But was that ‘Pied Piper’ comment really necessary?”


“That was a compliment, you know!”, he replied, “It takes enormous technique, a lot of practice, passion, and creativity to be a good Pied Piper.”


I granted him a faint smile and asked, “But was the difference between the two departments really that significant? I seem to recall that it didn’t always end well with those friendships back then. There was quite a fallout with Peter Schat and Konrad Boehmer. And from your text, I gathered that significant differences of opinion arose in your department.”


“Peter Schat mainly distanced himself from Louis Andriessen,” he explained. “It was about the path Louis Andriessen was taking, which he found disastrous. Schat believed that he had found a way out of the impasse in which new music had ended up, in his view, with his ‘Toonklok’. By the way, he stole the idea of the ‘Toonklok’ from one of his students, but that’s another story. The group around the ‘Aktie Notenkraker’ was indeed friends. The friendships between Van Vlijmen and Schat, Andriessen and De Leeuw, and De Leeuw and Van Vlijmen were never broken. And everyone had the utmost respect for Raaijmakers.”

Konrad Boehmer is a different story. He became the black sheep of the department, critical of all his colleagues, and he didn’t keep it hidden. Later, it turned personal, with dramatic consequences.


It went wrong when Raaijmakers indicated he wanted to step down as the head of the Composition Department. Boehmer wanted to succeed him, but Van Vlijmen vehemently opposed it. That’s where the seed was planted for the later bomb Boehmer placed under the flagship of Van Vlijmen and De Leeuw: the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst [Foundation for Creating Music]. He prepared that for years, as a seasoned intriguer.”


“You had also become the black sheep of the department by that time, so there are similarities between you and Boehmer,” I suggested.

“In a way, yes, but there’s also a crucial difference: I never let personal motives guide me, whereas Boehmer did. Van Vlijmen’s refusal to appoint him as the head of the department was the first seed, later followed by the rejection of a grant application for an opera by the Foundation. Boehmer’s problem was that he had a very mediocre musical talent. He was an outstanding scholar, highly erudite, eloquent, and sharp-minded. I enjoyed four years of music history classes with him. He structured his lessons into three layers: first a social layer, then a cultural layer, and finally a musical layer. The last one was without any doubt the least interesting. When he had to talk about Schumann’s notes, one of his favorite composers, he began to stutter. The Foundation’s refusal to support that opera also had formal aspects; he couldn’t yet demonstrate that the opera would actually be performed. But the Foundation could have handled the matter more intelligently, for instance, by giving him a partial commission, so he had time to get the formal aspects in order.


Now, regarding my role as the black sheep, Konrad Boehmer enjoyed his polemics and intrigues, but I didn’t at all. My talent has always been in creating ideas and visions; concretizing them wasn’t my strong suit. What probably no one remembers is that when I served on the board of the Johan Wagenaarstichting, I proposed to change its entire setup. I wrote a text with a plan called ‘100 Flowers’, in which I suggested discarding the funding structure and replacing it with the realization of a ‘dream’. A composer would then have the opportunity to bring that dream to life. In addition, a young composer would be given the chance to realize a smaller dream. This actually happened for several years. At one point, when I was no longer on the board, they changed the setup to what it is today, a music festival in Den Haag: Dag in de Branding.”


“My transition to the composition department was also the result of such a vision. The ATV idea had been permanently banished from the conservatory, so I designed a new theory curriculum for the composition department in which the ideals of the ATV concept were reborn. In a different form, of course, but based on similar principles. I received valuable advice for its development from Dick Raaijmakers. And also from Frans Evers, by the way. They outlined a strategy that I could work well with. The department’s teachers were immediately on board. They supported me well. In 2004, it became a reality.


It actually went well until 2010. Until that time, I had been able to articulate my critical ideas and comments in a productive way, without conflicts. I wasn’t yet a black sheep. That happened in 2010. This was partly the result of the actions of two students, Yedo Gibson and Jeremiah Runnels, who were furious about a decision by Jantina to have students pay an entrance fee for the final concert of the annual Spring Festival. The festival was the successor to the former May Concerts and was co-organized by the students. It was their festival. Korzo, the venue where this concert was to take place, was involved in a larger project, the exchange between the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and the Bang on a Can ensemble from New York. Bang on a Can was going to perform during the final concert, and Asko|Schönberg would perform in New York, featuring a piece by Jantina. The idea of the entrance fee was born to cover a budget shortfall.


Yedo Gibson and Jeremiah Runnels, therefore, organized an Off-Korzo concert. They formed a group of students who would play an arrangement of Louis Andriessen’s De Staat in a squatters’ pub next to Korzo. The arrangement was put together in two weeks, with a very ingenious solution for all the parts. The essence of the harmony was placed as a ‘block’ in the score, and all the players could distill their melodies from it. The result was that it ‘approximately’ sounded like what was in the original score. The lineup was adjusted to the available musicians, including male voices instead of female ones, and one (out-of-tune) piano.”

“This was a pivotal moment for me. I had to expose myself and determine where my loyalty should lie: with the students or with the teachers and the institution as a whole. There was no middle ground. I decided that my loyalty to my students was of a higher order, and I supported them. I declined to participate in the official concert and went to the student concert. From that moment on, tensions grew between Jantina and me. During another concert not long afterward, she made some remark in my direction, and I laughed it off. Her comment was, ‘Stop giggling like a sheep.’ The ‘Black Sheep’ was born. Everything that happened between us from then on was influenced by this. At the end of that year, together with Gibson and Runnels, I founded Het Atelier, a studio for students from various departments, with a core group of about ten composition students but also including students from the classical department, percussion, jazz, and even Early Music. There were a few external musicians and some students from the KABK’s Master Department Research also participated. It was a diverse group. We worked every Saturday, from around eleven in the morning, often until well past midnight. The morning was dedicated to improvisation, a crucial element for the players to get to know each other musically. The afternoons were for rehearsing sketches of composition students or existing compositions. In the evenings, we ate, drank, and discussed practical matters, but most of the time, it was about an episode of the ‘Beauty Class’, as the students had dubbed my class The Technique of Beauty.


Through ‘Het Atelier’ and the ‘Beauty Class’, I became increasingly politically aware. In class, we had started reading philosophical texts, from Plato to Nietzsche, Agamben, and Foucault. But also Wagner’s ‘Das Judentum in der Musik’, Kafka, and Celan. The discussions, in particular, helped me to see more clearly the way the department had gone astray and how it was connected to the prevailing neoliberal government policy, which left deeper marks on the school. And how the lack of a clear stance in our department took its toll on our relationship. My colleagues accused me of being too principled. They believed we should handle things ‘under the table’ and ‘go along’ with the power game. I strongly disagreed with this approach because it prevented the problems from being clearly articulated and frustrated critical analysis. This attitude was held against me, with all its consequences.


Sometime during that period, there was an accreditation of the master’s department by an ‘external’ committee. Well, ‘external’ — the school could appoint that committee themselves. Another excellent example of how things were arranged ‘under the table’. At the time, I was still in charge of the master’s research, all its elements, the so-called ‘master circle’, and the guidance of individual research projects. I left the format open; it could be a paper, a presentation, a concert, a discussion, anything was possible, with the most surprising results. In the meantime, I discovered that the director had asked two of my colleagues to participate in the team that would be questioned by the committee. They had nothing to do with the research classes.


One of them even had to be coached by the director on what to say. I was bewildered. Not much later, I was removed from teaching the research classes by our department head, with the argument of ‘evolving insights’. I was replaced by two colleagues, and from that moment on, the classes increasingly conformed to the school’s policies, resulting in entirely dull and uniform PowerPoint presentations and papers of often mediocre quality, filled with trendy terms like ‘contextuality’ and ‘deconstruction’.

The confrontations between me and the rest of the department were getting sharper and more frequent. I can’t remember the exact year, but again, a decision had been made in consultation with Korzo to charge students for their own concert, this time the final exam concert. I wrote an email to the students, telling them not to accept this. So I was summoned by Jantina for an explanation — how dare I? It was me against the rest of the department. My arguments fell on deaf ears. Jantina’s ultimate argument was that seven colleagues were in favor of the decision, and only one was against it. Seven people think that 1 + 1 = 3, so where do you get the audacity to believe it’s 2!? Another well-thought-out argument that surfaced was, ‘But Nico, Korzo, they are our friends!’ Oh? According to me, they were simply being paid to allocate part of their program to education. With friends like that, who needs enemies?


Sometime around that time, one of my students, Cristiano Melli, was physically thrown out of the building by the director himself. Literary! Melli was no longer allowed to enter the building, and the front desk staff had to make sure of that. He had struggled for years to pay his tuition fees; he was from Brazil, had no income, and it was made nearly impossible for non-EU students to earn some money in a decent way. However, with hard work and some improvisation, with the help of teachers and students, he had managed to pay a part of the tuition fees, he was just behind. This had been the case for six years.


To dupe him in the last year of his master’s studies, right before his exam, was, in my view, immoral. I decided to take action: if my student couldn’t come to my class, the class would go outside. Other students of mine arranged a table and some chairs; I started teaching under the viaduct across from the building. The entire school watched from behind the windows, and there was quite a gathering around my ‘teaching table’. I read a pamphlet, and it went viral on Facebook. The director gave in, and we jointly devised an arrangement that was beneficial for both the school and Melli.


There were a few more incidents, but I won’t mention them all. It’s clear that when I proposed my plan for the succession of my theory classes, I had already lost all my credit. This was, of course, not explicitly stated since the hypocritical atmosphere of conviviality was not to be disrupted. Still, it became evident to me far too late, and I readily admit that. I had continued to trust in our friendship until the very end. Incredibly naive!”


I stood up to clear my head as I was feeling quite dizzy. I refilled my glass, took a few sips, sat down, and said, “So, I assume we’re getting to that crucial meeting on October 7, 2019?”


“Indeed,” he replied. Before continuing, he went inside and came back out five minutes later with a new cigar. “Provisions for the road and a few sips of wine,” he grinned, after refilling his glass as well.
 “What bothers me most revolves around two things: not just that my plan was rejected, but how it was rejected. And a slip of the tongue.”


“Let’s discuss this step by step. First, the plan — what did it entail, without getting bogged down in too many details?”


“The plan was clear. Besides myself, there was one other theory teacher who taught solfège and counterpoint. I handled the subjects of analysis and harmony, as well as the aesthetics class. The plan was for Melli to take over the analysis and aesthetics classes, and for the other teacher to add the harmony class. I would coach both of them for a year by participating in those classes and documenting everything. Furthermore, I had written a detailed plan to divide the theory into two parts: a classical part for students more interested in conventional composition techniques and an experimental part for those working with computer techniques, installations, and performance art. The three of us would work on this proposal for two years. I was also willing to stay on as a teacher for an extra year to supervise the final evaluation.


Interestingly, all colleagues claimed to support the plan. Their only objection was to Melli. But he was an essential part of the plan! I had worked intensively with him for eight years, including the last four years on the creation of the opera La Tragedia di Claudio M., a collaborative project between the Composition Department and the Early Music Department, in which his contribution proved to be of fundamental value. He had also paid off all his student debts and served as a coach for the renowned Stockhausen project Aus Licht, a collaboration between the conservatory, the Dutch Opera, and the Holland Festival — for which he was paid! To the satisfaction of all parties, including the institutions, Stockhausen’s widows, and his students. I’ve spoken to several of them. The rejection of Melli was a farce; it was purely a personal matter between Jantina and him. All my colleagues went along with Jantina’s grudge. This was already bad, but what happened next crossed a serious line.”

“Whoa! So, if I understand correctly, your plan was actually well-received in principle? The issue was solely about Melli’s involvement. But for you, he was an essential part of the plan. How did your colleagues rationalize this? That seems like quite a dilemma.”


“You would think so, yes, but that argument was simply ignored. There was only a lot of evasiveness. At one point, someone said, ‘It’s very kind of you to want to take care of Melli, but…’ — as if I would sacrifice my life’s work for the sake of charity. I was bombarded with one fallacious argument after another. It was maddening.”


“So, there was no substantive feedback on your plan. But what were their arguments then? They had to present something, right?”


“Yes, they did present something, a cunning little theater play. Jantina had well-instructed some of the teachers. It was like a puppet show. A colleague began by saying that ‘my possible successor might do very well, you never know…’ Clearly, he was talking about an imaginary figure, let’s call it a strawman. Nothing more was said. The next day, everyone knew it was about a specific figure; they all knew who it was, and he eventually became the chosen one. But I had no idea. When I heard the name, I had never heard of him before. Everything had already been arranged behind my back. I checked this with two of my colleagues, who reluctantly admitted that they already knew who the strawman was during the meeting. When I sent an angry email about this, the director stepped in. He decided to initiate a ‘transparent’ procedure to select my successor, who had to come from outside. That was more of an exception than the rule in our department. ‘Transparent’, how dare he say that!”


Ten Broddels was now genuinely angry, and I decided to let him cool down for a moment. “It does seem quite odd.”


“The understatement of the year!” he scoffed. “So, I had a few more discussions with the director, proposing a compromise. He kept me on a string for two months and then suddenly made the decision. It was indeed the strawman.”


“Okay…” I saw him glance at me angrily. “Well, not okay. So, we’ve covered the plan and the little play. You also mentioned a ‘slip of the tongue’. Maybe you can tell me more about that now.” I hoped he would remain calm.”


“That slip of the tongue left me completely speechless. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was a real eye-opener, and then I understood that I needed to thoroughly revise my concept of ‘friendship’. What’s strange is that my students had warned me about this multiple times. They told me, ‘Jantina and your other colleagues are not your friends. They need you but will ditch you when it suits them.’ I didn’t want to hear, and couldn’t hear it; I had rock-solid trust in their friendship. What a disillusion! What gruesome naivety I became aware of. I was not only furious at them but mainly at myself.”

He stood up and walked a bit around the garden, circled the house, and eventually ended up between the two linden trees. There, he stood staring into the distance for a while. I considered walking over to him, but decided it was best to let him cool down. I went to the bathroom to wash my face.


When I came back outside, he was sitting under the parasol, smoking another cigar, ‘to relieve the stress,’ he said.


“Have you calmed down a bit now?” I asked, hoping he was feeling better.


“I’m trying my best,” he said resignedly.


“Well, now you can maybe explain to me what that slip of the tongue was all about. I’ve been warned…” I said with a wry grin.



“Jantina and I had a heated argument at one point. We weren’t getting anywhere, she was standing her ground, and I was doing the same. The others were uncomfortably watching us. Then she suddenly said the following: ‘You’re doing the same thing as in that conversation with the director about continuing Het Atelier. If you had let go of Jeremiah back then, you could have continued with Yedo.’ This was about a conversation I had with her and the director, somewhere in June 2013. Runnels and Gibson had just graduated, and I had suggested continuing with Het Atelier, but with compensation for both of them. The three of us had founded the studio, and put in many hours of work into the project. I felt they should be paid for it now. It wasn’t a lot of money, 4,500 euros each, for a year’s work. The director flatly refused. ‘I’m not going to hire just-graduated students.’ That was a lie, because it happened regularly. ‘Why don’t you continue with a few other students?’ he suggested then. Of course, that was unacceptable to me, it would be a direct betrayal of them. Then it fell through. Not a word was said about ‘not Jeremiah, but Yedo’. I had gone into the conversation with the director with the idea that Jantina would support me, as she had promised. But now I understood that she had already spoken to the director earlier and arranged that Runnels was under no circumstances to remain involved with Het Atelier. It was a setup.


She had previously let it be known that she didn’t want to attend Runnels’ bachelor’s exam, supposedly because she didn’t want to be negatively involved in his exam. She held a clear grudge against him. And the director was more than willing to play along in this underhanded game. All of this became clear to me at once, and I went home totally disillusioned. I was furious with Jantina for her double betrayal, angry with the teachers who had played her little game, and deeply disappointed in three of my colleagues with whom I had separately discussed my plan, hoping they would support me, which they had promised. But they were too weak and too uninvolved in my dream. The plan was a really good idea; it could have upheld the principles of the Hague School. However, as Jantina had already said during that meeting, ‘we need to get rid of the image of the Hague School; it’s bad for our competitive position compared to the Amsterdam Conservatory. Young students want nothing to do with it.’ Yes, not with that marketing slogan, a frame she had come up with, or at least widely propagated.” — “Then let’s talk about friendship now,” he continued.


We decided to have dinner first. Ten Broddels prepared a delicious meal, starting with a delightful paté de foie gras, followed by stuffed mushrooms with the size of billiard balls, then pasta with salmon, and finally, a selection of special cheeses with baguette: Cabécou, Époisses, and Maroilles. We finished with Armagnac, espresso, and cigars. I, too, succumbed to the cigar.

Friendship

We were still sitting under the parasol; the sun had not set yet, but it had cooled down to around 25 degrees Celsius. I hoped the same applied to Ten Broddels. He appeared calmer, so I asked him how he felt. He said he had mixed feelings, primarily of betrayal and, to a greater extent, of shame.

“What do you understand by ’friendship’?” I knew it was an overly general question, but I understood that Ten Broddels would immediately sweep away the generality and get to the point in his own way. Perhaps it was because of my cigar.


“What do you understand by ‘life’? What do you understand by ‘art’? What is ‘a good interview’?” He looked at me with pity.


I wanted to apologize for my somewhat stupid question, but he raised his hand with the cigar and said:


“That question is a typical example of objectwise thinking. ‘Friendship’ is an object that one can have an opinion about or provide a definition for. Then you can pass judgment on it. This person is not a true friend because of this and that. I’m not capable of thinking in this way, and certainly not of living that way. So, friendship doesn’t work like that for me. True friendship — and now, inevitably, we’re back to the principle of truth — is a subjectwise action that should not be grounded in specific predefined conditions. ‘Hey, you do this, so you’re not my friend!’ — or: ‘Ah, you do that, so you are indeed my friend!’ Figure it out. Utterly irrelevant.
 So you’re constantly oscillating between a friendship and not-friendship. I’m not a yo-yo. True friendship is unconditional. Just like truth, it’s disinterested. And, of course, in a friendship, you can hurt each other, but that’s because we’re human and sometimes say or do stupid things. I remember once talking to Louis about arguments and love problems. He said, ‘Most of the time, such a fight results from a misunderstanding.’ I found that an elegant way to think about it. It often becomes much bigger than necessary. You shouldn’t make yourself too important.”


“Now, we’re back to the concept of truth. Earlier this afternoon, you said you don’t want to talk about it in the abstract sense, but perhaps you can still say something about it now. It seems meaningful.”


“As I said, I’ve written about it before, and I don’t want to repeat myself. But fine, three sentences, then. As I mentioned, I lack an academic background, so when it comes to the principle of truth, I’m at best an amateur. But I find the principle of ‘disinterestedness’ too elegant to simply let go. One of my colleague friends pointed me to the work of the French philosopher Alain Badiou, who, in contrast to other philosophers like Foucault and Deleuze, believes in the existence of a ‘universal truth.’ This takes place in what he calls an ‘événement’, an ‘event’; his view seems to align with my ideas about the ‘subjectwise’ and — though I still need to explore this further — also with the concept of disinterestedness.”


I had to make do with that, but at least it was something. And he understood that there were likely many objections to it himself. “Okay, let’s go back to our subject. Friendship is subjectwise, so it occurs in the action, and in your view, it’s selfless. Although there can always be conflicting interests in a friendship. How can you know how to act in such cases? Perhaps a better question: can a friendship end? Is there a limit?”

“The first question is too general again, but the two questions following it are relevant. Starting with the simplest case of a possible termination, if one of the two friends passes away, does that mean the end of that friendship? I believe not because the friendship lives on in the memories of the surviving friend. If that friend also passes away, then it becomes a mystical problem. Does that friendship still endure in some form of energy somewhere? When the friendly memories have also been shared with others, such as in written text, then most certainly. For the record, we mean true friendship.


Then the next question remains: Can true friendship between two living friends be terminated? In other words, your second question: Is there a limit to such a friendship? This can only happen if one of them inflicts something irreparable on the other. Irreparability creates the limit. But this immediately leads to another question: Did that friendship really exist? When we answer this question in the negative, we, therefore, define that friendship as eternal. But then it seems like a matter of definition.


When we define true friendship as eternal friendship and therefore boundless, we avoid the fundamental question about its principles — at least, that’s what I’m now inclined to think. Disinterestedness does not mean boundlessness, nor does it mean eternity. Let’s take a brief detour. This disinterestedness does not mean that true friendship is without commitment; quite the contrary. As we have already established, both friends can have their own interests, and those interests can conflict with each other. This means that in weighing both of their interests, unconditional friendship should not become a victim. Perhaps one of the friends has to swallow a bitter pill, but they do so generously because of the friendship. The next time, the other friend swallows that pill. If one of the friends constantly has to swallow that pill, then there is apparently no real friendship, but rather a pathological power relationship.”


Ten Broddels had stood up. “I need time to think further about this; my head is too full now.” It had cooled down considerably, and he went to get a jacket. I also needed warmer clothing. “I suggest we adjourn this session and reconvene tomorrow morning to start fresh,” he said when he returned to the garden.


I agreed with him. We had another drink, he with a cigar, and I without, and we stared at the stars in silence for a while. I noticed how many more stars you could see here compared to the Netherlands.


“It’s a complicated topic; I think I might see it differently after a good night’s sleep,” he said.

The next morning, around eleven o’clock, we were back under the parasol. Ten Broddels had smoked a cigar first, along with two cups of espresso, and then had a plate with two elongated toast points and some soft, creamy blue cheese. And two thin slices of baguette with plenty of butter and strawberry jam. I had chosen the same breakfast, minus the cigar. It was 18 degrees.


“I’ve thought about it and believe we need to take a different direction,” he began. “The problem for me is the so-called ‘eternity’ of that friendship. By definition, it cannot be eternal; something can always happen to end that friendship. But that would be something of fundamental nature, not some difference in interest, but truly fundamental. Someone can change at an essential level for whatever reason. Something like that must be at play. What we need to examine now is whether my friendship with Jantina ever existed, whether it has indeed been terminated, and whether it was ‘genuine’. Its interpretation must be done on a fundamental level. Hopefully, it will teach us something about the phenomenon of ‘true friendship’, regardless of whether it was present between us. Ultimately, I don’t need to resolve this on an abstract level. I don’t know if we can arrive at any conclusions today or tomorrow.”


“And maybe you could also say something about the other friendships. You mentioned ‘friends’ in your text, so that’s plural.”


“Yes, there are various degrees of friendships; for the issue of our department, the nature of them doesn’t matter,” he said.

After clearing the table, he continued, “The key is that there was some form of friendship, at least, that’s what I believed for many years. The concept of ‘true friendship’ only sharpens the issue, but for the assessment of what went wrong between me and the department, this distinction is irrelevant. Okay, were my colleagues and I friends?


I am now more than inclined to say that this was not the case, and there was nothing between Jantina and me that indicated ‘true friendship’. My students who tried to make this clear to me were right.


Now let’s examine the grounds on which I reach this conclusion. I had already established that there was a difference between the friendships among the teachers during my student days and those during my time as a teacher, that in the former case, those friendships did not impede critical discussion and fundamental disagreements. Whereas in the latter case, there were essentially no real differences of opinion expressed until the moment I started doing so. But that was also the moment when that so-called friendship turned out to be a farce, even though it took a long time for me to realize this. This ‘friendship’ was only there to preserve the conviviality of the department. It was there to mask fundamental, critical discussion and disagreements.


In other words, these friendships were linked to an interest. During one of the heated arguments I had with Jantina, she said, ‘Do you know all the things I’ve done for you?’ The little monkey ‘favor’ came out of the sleeve.”

He went to make another espresso for us. This gave me time to think. I wasn’t sure what to make of his argument; he seemed articulating very rigid ‘true believer’. I mean, can’t you just be friends, help each other, have occasional disputes, and then have a beer again? Why had this gotten so out of hand? I understood his motives, especially given his Calvinist background, and hypocrisy undoubtedly played a role; but where doesn’t it? Was this related to his uncompromising attitude towards art? Was everything a matter of life and death? That would make him a kind of proto-romantic. When he placed the coffee on the table, I told him my thoughts and questions. He listened silently and stared at the two linden trees for a while before answering.


“In the time when I was still responsible for the master’s research, we had a meeting with the management: the director and the deputy. The deputy was responsible for the master’s research of all departments, and he wanted all departments to be aligned, so the presentations of all departments in the same week, based on a similar structure. When I expressed my objections to this and explained why we, as a department, wanted to do it our way, for substantive reasons – composing is different from playing the trumpet – the man said, ‘But we already do so much for your department!’ Again, that little monkey of favor. Management was Santa Claus, and we were supposed to be grateful for his gifts.


This attitude is characteristic of the relationships in our country, in companies and institutions, in educational institutions, and especially in politics. I sum this up under the heading ‘gezelligheid’ [coziness]. ’Poldering’, ‘tolerance policy’, all of this has its roots here. And they’re proud of it too! ‘The police are your best friends!’ ‘Together we’ll work it out!’ — No! We’ll never get anywhere, and we’ll never really address problems as long as we avoid a fundamental analysis and evade the truth because everyone has to get a little right at the end of this coziness ritual. In true friendship, you generously swallow that bitter pill if the truth prescribes it. Only in false friendships do you all take a strongly diluted placebo pill dissolved in honey.”


“Still, we can say more about the attitude of ‘going along’, which can also be smart or, moreover, essential. Or do you think Galileo was wrong when he yielded to the Catholic authorities? Is martyrdom always and in principle preferable to a more practical attitude? And where are the limits, how can we know this?”


“Galileo is a bad example. If someone points a gun at my head and forces me to declare that the statement 1 + 1 = 3 is true, then my answer is unequivocally 3. The discussions in the department weren’t about a gun to your head. Someone who puts a gun to your head to force a statement is just too stupid to dance with the devil. The fundamental point is what that statement then yields and for whom. It’s about the substantive issue. 


If I’m forced to say that 1 + 1 = 3, it’s not an attack on the truth; the truth is not at issue, only saving my life is. In other words, it’s about avoiding a fundamental conflict, over a substantive issue, and doing violence to the truth, not resolving the conflict, and leaving the world to power. The most powerful always win. Going along with power on a substantive issue means losing the truth behind that issue. That’s precisely what happened to the composition department. And now that the department has moved to the new building, they will reap the bitter fruits of the lack of backbone. Jantina has squandered the critical stance of the department, which you can call the ‘Hague School’ or whatever you like, on an empty power structure, using coziness as an instrument. Ultimately, it’s a lack of courage. Galileo was courageous; Jantina and her like are not. Galileo won, Jantina lost.


I dare predict that the Sonology department will take over the role of the Composition department. The head of Sonology knows much better how to play that power game than Jantina, because he doesn’t hide behind cozy games. He’ll sit on the right committees and will devour, lock, stock, and barrel, what was once the heart of the Composition department, the electronic studio. You already saw the first signs when Van Bergeijk stopped teaching. Slowly but surely, the studio was dismantled, all the ‘outdated’ equipment was removed and given to Van Bergeijk as a gift. ‘Nice memory’. In an institution that highly values ‘historical performance practice’!


One of the last major projects organized by Van Bergeijk was the performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s work ‘Mikrophonie II.’ It’s a piece for choir, Hammond organ, and electronics. Van Bergeijk performed the work in two versions, the original analog version, and a new version in which the Hammond organ was simulated through high-quality samples. That’s genuine research into historical performance practice, indeed, in a history that seems to be shrinking, which is problematic in itself. This research has apparently become irrelevant.”


“Let’s take a step back,” I suggested. “Galileo. I would say he won because he yielded to the Roman authorities and withdrew his theory. That was wise because he knew that his theory would eventually be recognized. The truth ultimately prevails. You could have done the same in the case of ‘Het Atelier’. You could have conceded, selected new students, and rehired the two who had to leave through the back door. Then you would have retained the studio.”


“Rehire?’ That was the point; I asked for paid services. As for Galileo, of course, he won, but solely because he played the power game by ‘losing’. The truth was not at all at issue there. It was not a real part of the conflict; it was purely about the articulation of power. The same thing happened with ‘Het Atelier’. And again in the conflict over my succession. That’s how things are run in that institution. Jantina was on the committee that appointed the director at the time. They were friends, or acted like it, without realizing it. 


Both were entangled in that power game based on coziness. A real debate at a truly fundamental level was never conducted, and it couldn’t have been that way. Melli had a gun to his head. I then put a gun to the director’s head. I’m not against the use of means of power when a critical discussion is impossible. But this doesn’t provide a real solution; it only offers a temporary, practical solution. The real problem was the difference in tuition fees between EU students and non-EU students. During my tenure, the latter paid double: 4,500 euros per year. That amount has since doubled. You stop admitting students based on artistic talent, as it should be, but on financial grounds. This problem remained unnamed. It was raised at some point, but it was always masked behind formal reasons. The school simply doesn’t receive subsidies for non-EU students. But that’s a practical problem, and you can find practical solutions if you genuinely believe that artistic grounds for admission are essential, and financial grounds should not be determinative. 


The practice within our department, especially over the past decade, was to duck away before any gun was even near, ostensibly to deceive power, but in reality, to evade the pursuit of truth, from a misguided sense of ‘togetherness’. That is fundamentally different from genuinely seeking the truth. When Melli was expelled from the school, a teacher sent him a text message: ‘I hope it turns out well.’ Ultimately, it comes down to indifference, laziness, and lack of courage, disguised behind ‘good intentions’.”

I decided to let this point rest for now. I could now imagine how the rest of his department occasionally got a headache from him. What an incredible zealot he is! Every issue is fought on the cutting edge. And sure, his arguments hold water in and of themselves, especially when he creates his own context, there’s no room for debate. But to have to work with a block of concrete or a sheet of stainless steel every time is asking a bit too much, at least for most people. Including me. Sometimes you want to stick that pin in a crack, find some room for human imperfection. I raised my hands as a sign of surrender. “So, what’s next?” I asked. “Have we covered all the points, or are there any left?”


He looked at me intently for a few moments and then said, “You think I’ve become radicalized, that I needlessly pushed things to the extreme. That I should have been more diplomatic and achieved more that way. True or not true?”


“That could be our final topic for this interview: where are the limits of truth-seeking? Where does it degenerate into a fruitless articulation of principles, leaving everyone empty-handed in the end? You stand empty-handed with feelings of betrayal and shame, but, as you indicated, the department has lost its soul. Aren’t you also responsible for that?”


“In fact, we’ve already discussed this around the figure of Galileo, but I’ll summarize it all once more.”

Nails

We decided to go for a walk first to clear our heads. It was already quite hot, with the temperature having risen to 28 degrees. Ten Broddels said we would take a not-too-long route with minimal elevation changes. I was in shorts and just a T-shirt, but for some unclear reason, he was wearing long pants and boots. When I asked him about it, he mentioned that we might have to walk through some grass along the way, and there could be nasty critters in there. Seeing my puzzled look, he explained, ‘Ticks and aoûtats, tiny harvest mites that nest their eggs under your skin. It can itch like crazy, much worse than mosquito bites. Older people, in particular, suffer from them because their skin is thinner.’ To be safe, I went back and put on long pants and high shoes as well. Prima de luxe, was his comment. We walked in an extended circle around his house, passing through a field with uncut grass and small roads. The village to which his house belonged consisted of little more than a post office, town hall, school, and a church. The view was breathtaking everywhere, with rolling low mountains, fields, forests, and occasional houses. After about fifty minutes, we returned to his ‘paradise’, both of us sweating. 


We settled back under the parasol, each with a cold beer in hand. “Well, go ahead,” I said invitingly. “Don’t worry about the structure of your summary, just start somewhere and see where you end up.”

He took a few more sips and began, “Let me start with the last point we discussed, ‘Galilei’, so to speak, and we’ll see where it takes us from there. This seems to be the core.


I’m calling it the ‘core’ now, partly because it was identified as such by Jantina during our conflict. She argued for a practical way to deal with power, where truth would ultimately prevail through a kind of guerrilla practice. In her view, and with the department’s support, my stance was too much based on principles of truth. As a result, I was, according to her, running myself into the concrete wall of power. I suspect she would agree with this formulation.


Maybe ‘the nail’ is a good metaphor. Jantina and her associates undoubtedly think that my truth project is ultimately a form of ‘nailing jelly to the wall’. ‘Live and let live’ is the motto; don’t make things difficult, sometimes, of course, but it has to be well-timed. The working atmosphere is most important. When I once asked her why she had stopped getting involved in government policy, as we had worked together on that issue, she said, ‘I want to continue enjoying my work’. That summarizes it well. While she believes that I am looking for these jelly-nails, I think I’m busy ‘hitting the nail on the head’. It’s the only way to wake things up and shake them up. To address real criticism and enforce changes, you need a hammer.”


‘Or you might hit your thumb hard with it,’ I thought to myself, but I decided to keep my commentary to myself for now.


“You could argue that Galilei followed Jantina’s tactic by writing in the preface of his book about a ‘moving earth’ — which supported his heliocentric theory through the theory of tides — that it was an ‘unproven theory’. That was a compromise. And also by smuggling another book to the Netherlands so it could be published there. That was ‘moving under the table’. But I think this is different. Firstly, it was about factual science, not a difference in views on a specific policy. It was truly about 1 + 1 = 2. The denial of this truth has nothing to do with a scientific opinion; it’s purely an articulation of power. Galilei hit the nail right on the head, except the Church kept her thumb in the way. He obviously knew that this truth would surface sooner or later, it was inevitable. That hammer couldn’t miss. In the case of policy matters, it’s different. If you do nothing to financially assist students from outside the EU, that battle is lost. If you deny the subjectwise principles of what was called the ‘Haagse School’, regardless of the irrelevant importance of that name, those principles are also lost. This is because it’s not about scientific facts but political views. If I had played along with the game of appeasement, my views wouldn’t even have been mentioned. Everything would have blended into that overly cozy, uncritical power game.

And, secondly, when it comes to pure show of power, the most powerful party always wins if the underdog tries to play along with this power game. It’s a losing battle. That’s why, in the case of Melli’s exclusion, I decided to play a different power game. Not going along merrily but seeking confrontation. I also sought confrontation in the issue of the paid final exam concert for the students at Korzo. If I hadn’t done so in both cases, nothing would have happened; the students would have paid, and Melli would have missed out on his diploma. I drove two nails into the wood.”


“But you could have handled it differently without discarding your views. You had maneuvered yourself into an isolated position. If you had managed to involve a few allies in the group in those matters, perhaps by expressing yourself a bit more diplomatically, you could have hit those nails on the head as well.”


“I tried that. Before the meeting on October 7th, I spoke separately with three colleagues about my plan for my theory classes. I raised the issues I saw coming with Jantina. At one point, Jantina had told me that if Melli were to do a sample lesson, assessed by one of those colleagues, and the assessment was positive, she would withdraw her objections. When I discussed this with that colleague, he said he couldn’t agree because he didn’t want to question my trust in Melli.


One of the other two colleagues tried to think along and proposed some compromises in the procedure, including a sample lesson. I, with mixed feelings as you can understand, ultimately agreed to a sample lesson. But during that meeting, Jantina pushed it off the table. Later, the director did the same. It was a losing battle against a stacked deck. During that meeting, the three colleagues who effectively supported me remained silent. The rest did exactly what Jantina expected of them.


But, you might argue, I was too late with that attempt to get support; my credit had already been exhausted. I should have played along with the social game from the beginning to accumulate more credit. I don’t believe that at all. Because camaraderie doesn’t build backbone. The only other strategy that could have helped was to play the game in the way the head of Sonology did. That means leaning close to the power without concealing friendship games. But for that, the department would have paid a price. The atmosphere in the department would have become much more formal, and we wanted to prevent that at all costs. Furthermore, the head of Sonology had a strong card to play. The department had a distinct formal shape; formally, it was a separate institution with its own status. The director wanted to get rid of that, but the head of Sonology wisely stood his ground. That gave him a position of power within the conservatoire.”


“The time has come to say it,” I said after some hesitation, “do you actually think you did anything wrong?”


He looked at me thoughtfully for a while. He seemed to be seriously pondering my question. “Well, that’s the million-dollar question,’ he finally said. “What options did I actually have? I could have played their game, then I would have been one of them, a wild bunch, but all the issues I considered important would have drowned in the quagmire of conviviality. That was option 1, not a real choice as far as I was concerned. Option 2. As I just mentioned, it’s clear that with your question, it was no longer about the succession of my classes, that battle was already lost before it began. So the real question is whether around the year 2010, I should have found (or created) a different form for my relationship with the department, particularly with Jantina. What could that form have looked like? This brings gives us two options: Option 2a. I could have struck a milder tone from the beginning, but would that have really helped, and was it even possible? Because was it about the tone, or was it about the critical arguments, which, even when dipped in a spoonful of honey, would still taste bitter. Option 2b. I could have done the opposite (of the previous option), even more actively sought confrontation. Because that’s a reproach I do make to myself: I kept believing in that friendship. It put me in a bind. If I had immediately believed my students and admitted that the friendship was a sham, I might have been more honest in communication and created more space for my critical comments through that distance.”


I decided to continue playing the role of the tough healer, relieved that I wasn’t the patient. “You mean to say that, if you had been more honest with yourself during that time, you could have been more honest with your colleagues, creating a distance that would have allowed more room for your critical remarks because the pseudo-friendship wouldn’t be in the way. Am I summarizing it correctly?” I saw him frown but also genuinely contemplate.


“You’re a thorn in my side.” Fortunately, I saw him smile. “Let’s have a drink to that.”

We decided to skip lunch as we had a late breakfast, and the temperature had risen above 30 degrees. Ten Broddels went to the kitchen and returned ten minutes later with a basket of baguette, a bowl of delicious olive oil with black pepper and salt, a bowl of Kalamata olives, a slice of paté de campagne, two halves of avocados, a platter of beef tomatoes, and a bowl of mixed salted cashews and smoked almonds. He also brought a chilled pack of Sauvignon Blanc with a tap.


“Is there anything in your professional career that you regret?” I asked.


“The career itself, perhaps?” he replied.


“What?! You can’t be serious! Can you really imagine a career outside of music?” I was shocked. Was he feeling depressed?


“When I was preparing those lawsuits in 2013 and 2014, I noticed that I found those legal formulations very interesting to study. The professor of administrative law who guided me in that direction once commented, ‘You could have been an excellent lawyer’.”


He raised both of his arms in a gesture of despair. “I did consider that at the time. Why music? What has it ultimately given me, and, more importantly, what has it ultimately given to music? And how important is all of this?”


I was taken aback. Was he really so disillusioned, or was he indeed deeply depressed? “Be tragic!” I said impulsively.


Suddenly, we heard a few gunshots not far from us. I was startled. “What is that? Has a war broken out?”


“That’s also the French countryside: hunting,” Ten Broddels said, looking at me with a wry grin.

“A while ago, I was driving back from Le Bugue in my little Peugeot. Suddenly, a pickup truck came out of a side road, its loading ramp open because the huge deer carcass inside it didn’t quite fit. Its head was dangling just above the road, swaying back and forth. An exceptionally tragic but also nauseating sight.”


“And you felt just like that deer, dead and rejected,” said the psychologist with a specialization in would-be matters.


“That doesn’t seem likely because that deer didn’t feel anything at all anymore. But my art practice has indeed come to a comparable end.”


“You’re still alive,” I tried to cheer him up. “You write texts, and I believe you derive a lot of pleasure from that.”


“Het plezier is een schoone zaak, en schenkt het menschdom veel vermaak. [Old ironic quote from Dutch literature: Pleasure is a beautiful thing and brings much joy to humankind],” he said. I couldn’t detect a trace of sarcasm in his voice, and I seriously began to doubt my perception. He looked at me with utmost seriousness, and I returned the look, but with no results.


“‘I hate fun!’ you once said in an interview. So pleasure is a suspicious concept; everything seems to be a matter of life or death for you. I also hear this in your compositions. It’s their strength, but perhaps also their weakness. Well, now that I say this, from a public perspective, your work isn’t popular,” I remarked.


“With the latter, I have never concerned myself; it’s entirely irrelevant to me. But you’re right, when it comes to ‘cultural entrepreneurship’, I’m not cut out for it. I compose a piece the way I do because I believe the work demands it. I don’t exist as an ego when I’m working; the work, in a sense, writes itself. The audience that appreciates my work has always been very small. I don’t regret that.”


“But then there’s indeed the possibility that your work becomes ‘anecdotal’. When the public domain has no interest, the foundation is lacking. I would definitely call that tragic. Doesn’t that bother you? What is art intended for?”


“Somewhere in Texas, along Route 66, there’s a row of Cadillacs buried nose-first in the desert ground. You can see them if you happen to be in the area. Who is it meant for? What is the purpose? The fact that it exists should be sufficient.”


“That would make art inconsequential. The work exists somewhere, someone knows it or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s good or bad based on what judgement? That doesn’t matter either. It’s there because it’s there,” I said.


“The same goes for Mount Everest; it’s there because it’s there. That doesn’t make it inconsequential. I also understand that a work of art is different from a natural object. Monteverdi’s Orfeo was there, exemplary in its excellence, yet it disappeared from the stage for a few centuries. No audience. Sometimes that happens. Kafka had instructed Max Brod, his literary executor, to destroy his manuscripts after his death, but Brod decided to publish them. Kafka had evidently written them for himself. And I could go on like this for a while,” he replied.


“Ultimately, it’s about art subsidized by the government. They can set certain conditions, and these are different now than, say, thirty years ago. If you create art without receiving government subsidies, you can do whatever you want. Then it’s up to you to determine the societal significance you want to attach to it.”


“And then the circle is complete because the government has seriously marginalized the purely artistic value of art. The meaningless question is what I would have done forty years ago if I had known this would happen. Become a lawyer? None of that matters now. I’m left with the question of what my work ultimately means. There’s no answer to that now. The only thing that remains is to keep creating things because that’s something I apparently can’t do without. I’ve learned a lot, both in my field and through my field,” he concluded.


Meanwhile, I had reviewed my notes to ensure there were no loose ends. “We were still going to discuss the ‘rise and fall of voice-leading rules’, but that doesn’t seem necessary anymore,” I mentioned as he sat back under the parasol. He shook his head. “And we were also going to talk about your understanding of ‘pure art’. Both topics have been touched upon in between the lines.” He nodded. “In that case, we’re done with the interview!”


“Yes,” he said, “those matters are primarily related to music technique, they are of secundary importance for this interview, in my opinion.”

“Could you give a summarizing characterization of your life as a composer and teacher, in the context of that period,” I asked.

“Good grief…,” he began, looking at me wearily. He sighed deeply and lit yet another cigar. His lighter failed exactly fourteen times.

“I could describe that period as the rise and fall of an adventurous, critical musical practice, both on the performing side — and here I mean especially the ensembles and chamber music — as well as in music education. Although it concerned a relatively small part of the music world as a whole, and although there was plenty of aversion and resentment directed against this part of that world, the mutual engagement within the group was strong. There was no ideology of style, as outsiders often claimed — it was about something larger, something you might call transcendental; it extended from composing, playing, improvising, researching, and inventing. That mutual engagement certainly did not mean that there were no fundamental artistic disagreements within the group, but the mutual respect was evident.”

“But was there still that respect between Peter Schat and Louis Andriessen, or around Konrad Boehmer?” I suggested.

“Some cracks certainly appeared, but I think the decline of this musical practice is mainly due to the increasingly neoliberal cultural policy. And to that so-called ‘Law of the Arresting Advantage,’ which somehow takes its toll on the adventurous attitude. Once the ensembles had been formally recognized through structural subsidies, the adventurous spirit was gradually replaced by a defensive mode of operating. Neoliberal policy reinforced this to a great extent. The attraction of the status quo is irresistible.”

“I have one more question,” I said, “you’ve left behind the hostile climate in The Hague and the disastrous art policy of the Netherlands, and retreated to a quiet place in the South of France. Are you bitter?” 


Ten Broddels pondered for a moment and said, “As for bitterness, I lack the talent for it. I don’t have a sour disposition, nor am I inherently vengeful because I am poorly endowed with ego. I always seek solutions, new paths when the old ones have withered; I want to create things, preferably excellently. Not for personal reasons, but for the nature of things itself. My compositions, texts, or etudes. It’s about the adventure of creation for me. I didn’t move to France as a form of escapism; my wife and I had planned to live here for decades. We often visited this idyllic region. The reason to come and live here is a positive one, not a negative one.”

Ten Broddels got up, went into the house, and returned a little while later with a small key in his hand. “Let’s check if there’s any mail,” he said. It seemed he needed a moment of distance, I thought. Later, he returned without any mail.


He went straight to the house, went inside and returned with a chilled bottle of champagne and two champagne glasses. “I can’t think of anything else that is needed to be addressed, and besides, I can always send you an email with an addition later,” he said. “Shake well before use!” he continued with a serious tone in his voice, as he handed the bottle to me.


I grinned and pretended to shake the bottle, but he didn’t react and stared at me with an empty expression. I opened the bottle with due care and poured the glasses. We raised our glasses, “To art!”


“To truth!” he responded, this time with a wide grin. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s the same,” he added. We sat in silence for a while, gazing into the garden, occasionally taking a sip of our champagne. It was warm.

Suddenly, a large deer, sporting an impressive set of antlers, leaped into view. It emerged from behind the woodshed, charging in our direction. It spotted us, froze for a few seconds, then made a quarter-turn and dashed across the driveway, exiting the property. In less than two heartbeats, a menacing herding dog came thundering by from the other side of the shed, barking and growling ferociously as it pursued the deer. The dog paid us no heed and continued its chase. Moments later, all was quiet once more.

— Bonnemort, April 23, 2023