The Hague School: Three Composers Who Changed Dutch Music

Anyone wishing to understand why Dutch music developed such a distinctive character after 1970 cannot ignore The Hague. The Hague School emerged around the Royal Conservatoire: composers who rebelled against the established music scene with its red velvet and sedate orchestras. They wrote unconventional music with a strong rhythmic drive, inspired by Stravinsky and American minimal music. It attracted worldwide attention. Young composers travelled to The Hague from all corners of the globe, including Calliope Tsoupaki from Greece. She studied under Louis Andriessen and took classes in electronic music with Gilius van Bergeijk; she now teaches composition at the conservatoire herself. As guest curator, she has selected three favourite pieces by the composers who have shaped her.

Louis Andriessen based his Symphony for Loose Strings (1978) on a brilliant idea: twelve string players play exclusively on loose strings, each tuned differently. No one can play a melody on their own. Each sequence of consecutive notes must travel from musician to musician. You can see and hear the music leaping from music stand to music stand. This relay technique is called ‘hoketus’ and flourished in the fourteenth century, the era of the medieval Ars Nova: the festival’s theme.

Diderik Wagenaar drew inspiration from Stravinsky, but just as much from his jazz heroes Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. In Cat Music (1994), he portrays two cats in three pieces for two violins: in Playing, a playful melody constantly shifts in character; in Hunting, the violins chase one another in a stream of notes that never pauses for a moment; and in Purring, the two voices merge into a single contented, purring melody.

Gilius van Bergeijk is a pioneer of Dutch electronic music. In De Elementen (2024), for piano and electronics, he gives voice to earth, water, fire and air through piano sounds and sounds he recorded outdoors.