Karel Goeyvaerts

Karel August Goeyvaerts (8 June 1923 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian composer.

Life

Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory; he later studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen. He also studied ondes Martenot with Maurice Martenot, who invented the instrument (Delaere 2001).

In 1951, Goeyvaerts attended the famous Darmstadt New Music Summer School where he met Karlheinz Stockhausen, who was five years younger. Both were devout Catholics and found ways of integrating religious numerology into their serial compositions. They found themselves deep in conversation, and performed a movement from Goeyvaerts's "Nummer 1", Sonata for Two Pianos, in the composition course by Theodor Adorno there. They were both astonished upon hearing for the first time Messiaen's "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités" (from Quatre études de rythme), in a recording by the composer which Antoine Goléa played at a lecture. These experiences together convinced Stockhausen he should study with Messiaen.

Goeyvaerts became very excited in 1952 when he learned that Stockhausen had access in Paris to a generator of sine waves. Goeyvaerts saw them as an important discovery for music: the purest sound possible. At the time, Stockhausen did not share his enthusiasm, owing partly to the inability with the equipment at hand to superimpose sine tones. Only later, after taking up his new post at the NWDR Electronic Music Studio in Cologne, did Stockhausen find more suitable equipment, in July 1953 (Toop 1979). One of the first works produced there was Goeyvaerts's Nr. 5 with Pure Tones, which Stockhausen helped his friend to realize. (When Stockhausen seemingly abandoned his work with sine waves and returned to writing compositions for solo piano, Goeyvaerts felt that Stockhausen was abandoning an important discovery and took up the matter from a philosophical point of view himself.)

There has been some controversy about who wrote the first European "total" serial composition. His Nummer 2 (1951) for 13 instruments is one of the contenders (Delaere 1994, 13), as is his Nummer 1 (1950) Sonata for Two Pianos, and the Sonata for Two Pianos by Michel Fano (1950), depending on definitions of "total serialism" (Toop 1974).

After withdrawing from the musical world for a while, he accepted a position in 1970 at the Institute for Psychoacoustic and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent, which led to several other prestigious appointments in Belgium. His works from after 1975 take on aspects of minimalism, the best-known examples being his series of five Litanies (1979–82) and his final work, the opera Aquarius (1983–92). Though minimalism is ordinarily thought of as a reaction against serialism, for Goeyvaerts both techniques were merely subcategories of a non-dynamic, "static music" (Delaere, Beirens, and Staples 2004, 32–33). Analyses of his early serial compositions (especially the electronic Nr. 4, met dode tonen [with dead tones] and Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen [with pure tones]) reveal how close the connections actually are (Sabbe 1977). Goeyvaerts died suddenly in 1993 in his home city of Antwerp.

Selected works
  • Opera: Aquarius (L'ère du verseau) (1983–92)
  • Orchestra
    • Violin Concerto No. 1 (1948)
    • Violin Concerto No. 2 (1951)
    • Zomerspelen (1961)
    • Al naar gelang (1971)
    • Litanie III (1980)
    • Aquarius (concert version) (1991)
  • Ensemble
    • Tre Lieder per sonar a venti-sei (1949)
    • Nr. 2 voor 13 instrumenten (1951)
    • Nr. 3 met gestreken en geslagen tonen (1952)
    • Nr. 6 met 180 klankvoorwerpen (1954)
    • Pour que les fruits mûrissent cet été, for 14 Renaissance instruments, played by seven musicians (1975 or 1976)
    • Erst das Gesicht... (1978)
    • Zum Wassermann (1984)
    • Avontuur (1985)
    • De Heilige Stad (1986)
    • Das Haar (1990)
  • Vocal-instrumental
    • Elegische muziek (1950)
    • Mis voor Paus Johannes XXIII (1968)
    • Bélise dans un jardin (1972)
    • Litanie IV, for soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello (1981)
    • De Stemmen van de Waterman (1985)
  • Choir: Mon doux pilote s'endort aussi (1976)
  • Chamber music
    • Op. 1, Sonata for 2 pianos (1951),
    • Ach Golgatha!, for percussion, harp, and organ (1975)
    • Honneurs funèbres à la tête musicale d’Orphée, for 6 ondes Martenot (1978)
    • Litanie II, for 3 percussionists (1980)
    • Aemstel Kwartet (1985)
    • De Zeven Zegels, for string quartet (1986)
    • Voor Strijkkwartet (1992)
  • Piano
    • Litanie I (1979)
    • Pas à Pas (1985)
  • Tape:
    • Nr. 4 met dode tonen (1952)
    • Nr. 5 met zuivere tonen (1953)
    • Nr. 7 met convergerende en divergerende niveaus (1955)
    • Nachklänge aus dem Theater I–II (1972)
  • Instrument(s) plus tape:
    • Stuk voor piano en tape (1964)
    • Piano Quartet (1972)
    • You'll Never Be Alone Anymore (1975)
    • Litanie V, for harpsichord and tape (1982)

References

Belgian Documentation Centre for Contemporary Music (CEBEDEM): Karel Goeyvaerts

  • Beirens, Maarten. 2003. "Minimalist Techniques from a European Perspective. An Analysis of Pour que les fruits mûrissent cet été by Karel Goeyvaerts". Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 57:215–29.
  • Beirens, Maarten. 2013. European Minimalism and the Modernist Problem. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music, edited by Keith Potter, Kyle Gann, and Pwyll ap Siôn 61–86. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, Inc.; New York and Abington: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4094-3549-5 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-3156-1326-0 (ebook).
  • Christiaens, Jan. 2003. "'Absolute Purity Projected into Sound': Goeyvaerts, Heidegger and Early Serialism". Perspectives of New Music 41, no. 1 (Winter): 168–78.
  • Decroupet, Pascal, and Elena Ungeheuer. 1994. “Karel Goeyvaerts und die serielle Tonbandmusik.” Revue Belge de Musicologie 48:95–118.
  • Delaere, Mark. 1994. "The Projection in Time and Space of a Basic Idea Generating Structure. The Music of Karel Goeyvaerts" Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 48:11–14.
  • Delaere, Mark. 1996. "A Pioneer of Serial, Electronic and Minimal Music: The Belgian Composer K. Goeyvaerts." Tempo 195:2–5.
  • Delaere, Mark. 2001. "Goeyvaerts, Karel (August)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
  • Delaere, Marc. 2009. "Die Utopie bleibt: Zur szenischen Uraufführung der Oper Aquarius von Karel Goeyvaerts in Antwerpen". MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik, no. 122 (August): 79-80.
  • Delaere, Marc. 2016. "The Stockhausen–Goeyvaerts Correspondence and the Aesthetic Foundations of Serialism in the Early 1950s". In The Musical Legacy of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Looking Back and Forward, edited by M.J. Grant and Imke Misch, 20–34. Hofheim: Wolke Verlag. ISBN 978-3-95593-068-4.
  • Delaere, Mark, Maarten Beirens, and Hilary Staples. 2004. "Minimal Music in the Low Countries". Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 54, no. 1:31–78.
  • Goeyvaerts, Karel. 1994. "Paris-Darmstadt 1947–1956". Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 48:35–54.
  • Goeyvaerts, Karel. 2010. Selbstlose Musik: Texte, Briefe, Gespräche, edited by Mark Delaere. Cologne: Edition MusikTexte. ISBN 978-3-9813319-1-2.
  • Lysens, Jef, and Diana von Volborth-Danys. 1994. "Karel Goeyvaerts: A Chronological Survey of Works". Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 48:15–34.
  • Moelants, Dirk. “Statistical Analysis of Written and Performed Music: A Study of Compositional Principles and Problems of Coordination and Expression in 'Punctual' Serial Music.” Journal of New Music Research 29, no. 1 (March): 37–60.
  • Pols, Reinder. 1994. "The Time Is Near: Karel Goeyvaerts' Apocalyptic Utopia in His Opera Aquarius". Revue belge de musicologie/Belgisch tijdschrift voor muziekwetenschap 48:151–71.
  • Reininghaus, Frieder. 2009. "Wassermann geht plantschen: Die «Aquarius»-Musik von Karel Goeyvaerts wird in Antwerpen als Uraufführung auf die Bühne gebracht". Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, no. 5 (September–October): 78.
  • Sabbe, Herman. 1972. “Das Musikdenken von Karel Goeyvaerts in Bezug auf das Schaffen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der frühseriellen und elektronischen Musik 1950–1956”. Interface 2:101–13.
  • Sabbe, Herman. 1977. Het muzikale serialisme als techniek en als denkmethode: Een onderzoek naar de logische en historische samenhang van de onderscheiden toepassingen van het seriërend beginsel in de muziek van de periode 1950–1975. Ghent: Rijksuniversiteit te Gent.
  • Sabbe, Herman. 1981. "Die Einheit der Stockhausen-Zeit ...: Neue Erkenntnismöglichkeiten der seriellen Entwicklung anhand des frühen Wirkens von Stockhausen und Goeyvaerts. Dargestellt aufgrund der Briefe Stockhausens an Goevaerts". In Musik-Konzepte 19: Karlheinz Stockhausen: ... wie die Zeit verging ..., edited by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 5–96. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik.
  • Sabbe, Herman. 1994. "Goeyvaerts and the Beginnings of ‘Punctual’ Serialism and Electronic Music." Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 48:55–94.
  • Sabbe, Herman. 2005. "A Paradigm of 'Absolute Music': Goeyvaerts's N°. 4 as Numerus Sonorus". Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 59:243–51.
  • Toop, Richard. 1974. "Messiaen / Goeyvaerts, Fano / Stockhausen, Boulez." Perspectives of New Music 13, no. 1 (Fall-Winter): 141–69.
  • Toop. Richard. 1979. "Stockhausen and the Sine-Wave: The Story of an Ambiguous Relationship." Musical Quarterly 65, no.3, 379–91.
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