The snake
I wrote this composition in commission of Jan de Rooy, the violin-teacher and novelist, I mentioned before at 'Branoul' and 'Calling in the desert'. He asked me to write some things to accompany poems by Emily Dickinson, which should be performed in a literary program he presented in Literary theatre Branoul. It should be performed with the computer and a synthesizer and I wrote a piece for saxophone quartet. It took me three days in November 1992 to write it. It was based on the poem 'The Snake', but it is never performed the way I wrote it. Anne-Marie Heyligers, a Dutch actress who should read the poem, had a small snake in mind and according to her the piece should be higher in pitch and played quicker. I raised it an octave and let the computer play it at double speed. In this way this composition came into being. It was performed on November the 29th in 1992.
The original version became 'Pastorale'. To be honest, this is not one of my best compositions and perhaps it should be forgotten.
Recorded:
26/4/'93, 2/6/'97
Instrument used for the recording:
E-mu Proteus/1