GILIUS VAN BERGEIJK

Gilius van Bergeijk

Until about 1985 Gilius van Bergeijk was a member of various leading ensembles, including the Willem Breuker Collective, Instant Composer's Pool, and Orkest de Volharding. He is one of the Netherlands' most important representatives of “conceptual music”. His ideas have substantially influenced many composers of The Hague School, among whom ...
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Instruments

saxofoon

Mentioned in the biography of

1971   Diderik Wagenaar
1975   Orkest de Volharding
1982   Huba de Graaff
1988   Calliope Tsoupaki
1990   Vanessa Lann
1998   Klaas Hekman
2001   Bart Schneemann
2012   David Kweksilber
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Biography Gilius van Bergeijk

Until about 1985 Gilius van Bergeijk was a member of various leading ensembles, including the Willem Breuker Collective, Instant Composer's Pool, and Orkest de Volharding. He is one of the Netherlands' most important representatives of “conceptual music”. His ideas have substantially influenced many composers of The Hague School, among whom his colleagues Louis Andriessen and Martijn Padding, and his students Michel van der Aa, Richard Ayres and Huba de Graaff. “Nothing about this Hagueian is as it seems,” wrote Kees Polling in Trouw. The key concept in Van Bergeijk's music is “deconstruction” and many of his pieces could be thought of as commentary on or phenomena from music history.

Played in

De Zes Winden   saxofoon
Orkest de Volharding   saxofoon

1946

Gilius van Bergeijk is born in The Hague on November 7.

1965 - 1972

At the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, he studies the oboe and alto saxophone, and, additionally, composition with Kees van Baaren and electronic music with Dick Raaijmakers. He has his own orchestra – Gilius' Haagsche Hofje – and he plays in a duo with the saxophonist Luc Houtkamp. Van Bergeijk composes 'BAC' (1968-1970) for The Busy Drone, a street organ. The piece is based on J.S. Bach's 'double concerto' for violin and oboe, but the fourth beat of every bar is left out. It ends with a montage of all the omitted notes.

1972

Van Bergeijk is appointed teacher of electronic music at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

1980

He finishes 'Over de Dood en de Tijd' [On Death and Time], a triptych that draws a bridge between mechanized and live-performed music, using for example Franz Schubert's lied 'Der Tod und das Mädchen'. Elmer Schönberger comments: “Gilius van Bergeijk is one of those rare electronic composers who could even take a pre-war tape recorder and turn out an interesting piece.”

1983

Van Bergeijk is awarded the Willem Pijper Prize for 'Over de Dood en de Tijd' (1980).

1986

With Huib Emmer, he writes 'Tussen twee werelden (in memoriam Edgar Varèse)' [Between Two Worlds – In Memory of Edgar Varèse], for instrumental ensemble and tape.

1990 - 1993

He finishes 'Symfonie der Duizend (Alfabetisch)' [Symphony of the Thousand – In Alphabetical Order], a collage of the beginnings of 1,000 pieces of music. His 'Een Lied van Schijn en Weezen' [A Song of Truth and Semblance, 1993], is a rearrangement of the fourth of Mahler's 'Kindertotenlieder'.

2000

'Via Crucis' is a seven-movement Stations of the Cross passage through the organs of the Museum Van Speelklok tot Pierement in Utrecht.

Photos Gilius van Bergeijk

Audio/Video Gilius van Bergeijk