Etude [29] — Pergola

The Etudes are created using the programs from my DOS Lab and are then accompanied by a video. This is the opposite approach to film music, which is always made once the images already exist. There is always one subject in these compositions, and the image relates to it. The sounds are generated by a simple MIDI sound card from the DOS system.


Keinmal

On the night of May 7, 2025, I had a dream: Reinbert de Leeuw was playing a new composition on the piano, written by a young composer — about 32 years old. I was standing behind Reinbert, deeply amazed by the way he played it. It sounded as if he were composing it on the spot. I didn’t recognize the composer — his name wasn’t mentioned — but he had short blond hair and was probably from one of the Baltic states. Reinbert really liked the piece and told the young man he should definitely keep composing.

I remember some of the notes — though not all — and the score looked something like this: there were numbers on it, probably Hertz values. The seconds were to be tuned: 9:8 for a major second, 16:15 for a minor one. The B major chord was to be tuned purely.

This could lead to 45 different “chords” (ranging from 1 to 9 notes). The order of the chords was to follow a pattern without any repetition. I remember I had once designed a formula for that in my DOS Lab.

I made an étude out of this. Of course, it’s pointless to try to imitate or reproduce a dream — that’s not what dreams are for. Besides, Reinbert was improvising on the score, so it wasn’t fixed. I took some of the ideas from the dream, worked them out into a regular composition, and then connected it to an existing older video of a partly ruined pergola in the rain.