Louis Andriessen (b. 1939) was the Central Composer of the Orlando Festival 2018. Earlier editions of the Orlando Festival (the first and oldest chamber music festival of The Netherlands, established 1982) also contained performances of his beautiful and fascinating music.
In 2018, however, no fewer than 25 of his chamber music compositions were performed. A total of 24 dedicated musicians performed Andriessen’s music, including two ensembles participating in Orlando’s Master Class program, the AuRoRa and Avanesian Duos, which are also heard on this CD.
In total, some 3.5 hours of music, of which this CD presents 70 minutes, with nine compositions that were either not yet recorded (six of the pieces) or no longer available on CD. The exception is the live recording of Silver, which was added at special request of Andriessen.
The 25 works presented at the Orlando Festival were composed over a period of 61 years, dating from 1957 until 2018. Quite a few of these pieces had not been performed in recent years (or even decades) in The Netherlands. The wonderful variety in instrumentation of his works are represented therefore on this new recording. Louis was present during four very full days, rehearsing and working with the musicians and attending the performances.
