Pier & Oceaan

Pier & Oceaan was commissioned by the Johan Wagenaar Stichting and was premiered during festival “De Elektrische Golf” (the electric wave), which took place in the Atrium of the then new Den Haag Town Hall in May 2000.

In some ways, Pier & Oceaan expresses my affinity with the environment of Den Haag such as harbour, dunes and sea, although I certainly wouldn’t call it programme music. The title refers to a painting by painter Piet Mondriaan called Pier en Oceaan no.5: Zee en Sterrenlucht.

The sound material for Pier & Oceaan was organised into five main groups, which each were subdivided into the categories Tone Attacks, Tone Fields, Noise Attacks and Noise Fields.
Gottfried Michael Koenig’s computer composition program Projekt 1 was used to calculate four structures in which entry-points, pitches (in the case of Tone `Attacks and Tone Fields), spatial distribution, main groups and sound categories are defined.

Pier & Oceaan is dedicated to my composition teacher Jan Boerman and was realised with financial support from the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst.

score page from Pier & Oceaan

year: 1999
duration: 11:20
tracks: 8

Available on the CD His Master’s Noise: The Institute of Sonology (BVHaast 06/0701)

play an excerpt from Pier & Oceaan