Jozef van Wissem

Writing by Jozef van Wissem

On Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors

On a recent concert tour through Western Europe as a lutenist I asked people what they thought of Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors. The consensus was that of a dark static work, dense with hidden and layered meaning. Meant for a private audience, political and religious aspects are mixed together. Above is the crucifix, below is the skull: bones and death; both slightly hidden, they visualize the nature of power. The distorted lute symbolizes brevity and the ephemeral nature of life, it’s broken string also sends a message that all is not well between these two empty eyed friends. And the long ignored lute case under the table symbolizes feelings not shared. But the skull, a reminder of the imminence of Death, draws me in. As this memento mori reveals itself I find a link between the anamorphic perspective and my own concept of mirror image lute composition. Hence, as a sound response, I decide to begin with a historical, rather minimal lute prelude published in 1536. Preambel by German composer Hans Newsidler turns into layered palindromes and creates a parallel to the circular ‘ from dust to dust’ movement as exemplified by the vanitas. The title Sola Fide (by faith alone) represents personal loss, absence and justification by faith as suggested by The Ambassadors’ allegory.

New Music for Early Instruments Manifesto

The idea is to rid traditional instruments of their clichés. when one thinks of a lute the Robin Hood image comes to mind of the player standing under a balcony serenading a lady and getting a flower pot thrown at him. In order to update the instrument, to make it mature and give it it’s recognition it deserves one needs to put it in an entire different and contemporary context. So one denounces audience expectations for example. Like not playing the instrument in a classical manner; it really pisses of the purists when it turns out the lutanist becomes one chord wielding head banging long haired creature. (no men in tights to be found here). Or not playing the instrument for over a minute in concert, making the audience the performer, albeit uneasy and claustrophobic.

What else can be done? Early instruments can be processed on laptop in many different ways, field recordings can be added, lute tablature can be performed backwards, baroque themes can be repeated without end, the freeing up of these constraints seem endless. The idea is to drag the lute out of the museum, out of the safe hands of a small group of specialists and give it back to the people. The lute used to be omnipresent before it disappeared: in all layers of society, at court, in bars, in rich and poor families. and it traveled well on horse back so Italian, French, lowland, and German styles were mixed. so why hide it now?

The lute off course is only an example. there are other instruments like this which suffer from cliche.New Music for Early Unstruments intends to liberate these instruments by updating them in non-conventional ways.