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Annelies Van Parys was born on 5 June 1975 in Bruges and took her first steps in the music world at the age of ten. At the conservatory in Bruges, she studied piano with Thérèse T’Sjoen, who would instil in her a love and interest for new music, and chamber music with the tuba player Wim Belaen. In 1993 she continued her studies at the conservatory in Ghent where she specialised in piano with Johan Duijck (and harp as second instrument with Arielle Valibouse) and composition with Jan Rispens, Octaaf Van Geert, Godfried-Willem Raes and after 1998 with Luc Brewaeys. In 1998 she received her meestergraad for piano and in 1999 for composition. She then pursued advanced studies in composition with Brewaeys. In 2001 Van Parys was one of a select company of ten composers invited to the international composition seminar given by the Ictus ensemble in Brussels, where her bass clarinet solo was performed by Harry Sparnaay and where she had lessons from Thierry Demey and Jonathan Harvey. In April 2001 she was a guest at the Link Festival in the Netherlands, where Brewaeys was the focus for three days, and where two of her compositions, Parole (2000) and 5 Short Stories (2001) were premiered. In that same year, Van Parys received the Flanders/Québec prize for contemporary music for the piece PhrasesV performed for the occasion on 15 May 2002 in Montréal by the ensemble of the Société de Musique Contemporaine de Québec (SMCQ) under Walter Boudreau. Also in 2002 she wrote the composition Lux for the Flemish Radio Choir, which was broadcast live on 22 December in fifteen European countries. The composer is currently working at the conservatory in Bruges and teaching piano at the Artevelde Hogeschool in Ghent.

Work review

The many facets of her compositional ideas make it difficult to categorise Annelies Van Parys’ oeuvre. We can shed light on a number of important aspects, however, by starting from a music-history perspective, in which context their eclecticism can be considered a basis on which the composer embroiders her own musical fabric. The Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and twentieth century are the periods Van Parys draws on the most and in which she searches for means to colour, but more importantly, legitimise the form of her works.

In many compositions Annelies Van Parys harks back to historical contrapuntal techniques, which she assimilates and brings back to the formal level. In Movement (2002) the composer applies fourteenth-century isorythmic (talea) and isomelic (colour) constructions to systematically legitimise an increasing complexity. She also integrates extended performing techniques (battuto, behind the bridge, knock with fingers on the wood, hard bow pressure). In El Silencio (2000) there is something of a reference to a soggetto cavato dalle vocali through the derivation of a motive from the vowels and consonants in the title. This motive, the note b, becomes the focal point of the various sections of the composition. Until section eight, an asymmetrical arch form is suggested by both exponentially widening the tessitura from the b upwards (+ 1, + 2, + 4, + 8, + 16, + 32, + 64 quarter tones) and implementing a unanimous acceleration downwards (- 1, - 2, - 3, - 4, - 5, - 6, - 7 quarter tones). The next five sections develop within an analogous, converging structure. In Maanvis (Moonfish, 2001), written for the film of the same name by Isabel Bouttens, a similar course is taken by colouring words through their linguistic connection with the names of the notes: “f” stands for “femme”, “fis” (f-sharp) for “vis” (“fish” in Dutch). Another homage to the Renaissance is the integration of canon techniques. In 3 Miroirs (1999) the title refers to the mirror canon, where the intervals of the antecedent change direction in the consequent. The four-voice canon in Media Luna (2001) functions as a symbolic way to describe the shifting moon over the river. A similar plan is in place in Maanvis, where the alto flute and clarinet grow away from each other to represent the moon on the horizon. Another technique for generating an independent melodic profile is augmentatio (increasing note values). In the first section of 3 Miroirs this is expressed in a three-against-four relationship between the descant and bass. There is also an augmentatio in Lux (2002) and Wasser (2003).
Perhaps the high point of Renaissance formalistic theories is Golden Mean, an asymmetrical proportion of ancient Greek origins in which the largest part is to the smallest as the whole is to the largest, or in other words, ab : bc = ac : ab. Van Parys adapts this formula fairly strictly in Media Luna and Lux and less so in Wasser, to give the entering chorus more eloquence. Tonally, she also incorporates modal elements in the first section of Madrigalillo (2001) and the beginning of Lux.

Besides using Late Middle Ages and Renaissance formal principles, Van Parys also likes to draw on the high-tech, pluralistic sounds of the twentieth century. Her first large work, Catena Carminis (1996), a Latin text worked out by the composer and made up of short sentences derived from a Latin grammar exercise, is elaborated à la Bartók with Balkan metres and a neotonal language. The composer also refers to Bartók in the first section of Diptychon (1997), Stante Corde, while the second section, Perpetuum Mobile, is (like the second section of 3 Miroirs) based on the melodic-harmonic concept and tempo of Ligeti’s Fanfares (first book of the Etudes - 1985). In Diptychon, Van Parys is already writing in a fairly dodecaphonic style, by contriving a series on which she constructs chords, while 3 Miroirs is on the one hand based on Messiaen’s “modes à transpositions limitées” through its introduction of a limitedly transposable eight-tone scale and on the other hand, based on the Gestalt technique of Steve Reich. The Gestalt principle works with a repeated pattern which generates a new pattern through combinations with itself, thus setting in motion a varied process of repetition. Within Van Parys’ oeuvre, Picasso 1937 (arr. 2000) from 1999 can be considered the embodiment of the twenty-first-century musical systems and possibilities from which she seems to still draw inspiration. Starting with this piece, which refers to Picasso’s painting “Guernica” and is meant as an indictment against all forms of war, a compositional evolution is observable towards a static melodic concept in which the silence, influenced by Salvatore Sciarrino, has an important position and is sometimes related to spectralism. This current, which has flourished most since the 1970s in France, derives its harmony from the overtone spectrum of one or more instruments. Later compositions like Maanvis, PoésiesI (2000) and Lux also refer to this style. In order to produce aliquot tones, she experimented for the first time in Picasso 1937 with the Lachenmann aesthetic by making use of extended performing techniques. In the vocal passages, most use is made of the speaking voice and vocalising elements, and in the heterogeneous instrumental ensemble of various blowing, plucking, and bowing techniques, ranging from playing without a mouthpiece and key clicks to ricochet arco, col legno and behind the bridge. Virtually all of her subsequent compositions integrate this “anatomy of sound” concept one way or another. In this context, the use of electronic equipment cannot be avoided. In Picasso 1937, there are live electronics which amplify the voice or modulate the sound. Because of the reverb and delay components the medium in Panic (1999) is mostly used as a sound manipulator. The political engagement in Picasso 1937 is given form by the encapsulation of a quote from Monteverdi’s Lamento di Arianna (Lasciate mi morire) and the integration of news flashes chosen from the day of the performance (cf. Cage’s work with chance).
The quote technique can be heard in various other compositions: a fragment of Gregorian chant is worked into both PoésisI and in PhrasesV (2001), Dies Irae and Miserere Nobis respectively.

Postcardmusic (2002) deserves a separate mention. Within these small “haikus” an “all-in concept” is illustrated by combining musical and plastic aspirations. Written for friends and depicted as postcards, these little pieces were also posted as postcards.
This miniaturising and their own cachet can link them to Alban Berg’s Fünf Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskartentexten von Peter Altenberg.

List of works

- Chorus: Catena Carminis women's chorus (1996); Blake-cyclus for mezzo-soprano, chorus and piano (1999); Media Luna and Madrigalillo for mixed chorus on text by Frederico Garcia Lorca (2002); Lux for mixed chorus, piano and organ (2002); Wasser for mixed chorus and string trio on text by Rainer Maria Rilke (2002-2003)
- Ensemble: Diptychon for string quartet (1997); Picasso 1937 for large ensemble, violin solo, voice and live electronics (1999-2000); Phrases V for guitar, harp, piano and percussion (2001); Maanvis for alto flute, clarinet, violoncello, harp and percussion (2001); Movement for string quartet (2002)
- Music for one or two instruments: Panic for flute and live electronics (1999); 3 Miroirs for piano fourhanded (1999); PoésiesI miniatuur for viola and violoncello (2000); El Silencio for soprano and violin (2000); Parole for alto flute and piano (2000); 5 Short Stories for piano solo (2001); 3 Short Stories for two guitars (2001); Clamor for bass clarinet (2001); Nuances for flute (2001); Postcardmusic: 14 miniaturen op postkaarten for piano, flute, guitar, harp or voice (2002); 5 Short Stories for harp solo (2002); Wasser for string trio (2002-2003); Alba for recorder trio (2003); Absence for piano (and prepared piano ad lib.) (2003)

Bibliography

Not available

Discography

Not available

Publisher

Not available

Links

http://www.anneliesvanparys.be/

Coördinaten

Zandpoortstraat 31, 9000 Ghent (Belgium)
tel 0032 (0)9 233 90 02 - fax 0032 (0)9 233 90 02
mobile 0032 (0)474 42 76 93
anneliesvanparys [at] hotmail [dot] com
annelies [dot] vanparys [at] arteveldehs [dot] be


©2003 Robbe Herreman, voor MATRIX