Jan Hage: Jan Vriend – Jets d’Orgue

Jan Hage ‘Jan Vriend – Jets d’Orgue’
het ORGEL 95 (1999), nr. 2, 14-20 [summary]

Jets d’Orgue, written by Jan Vriend, is a milestone inorgan literature as well in the oeuvre of the composer himself. Part 1 of the -three-partcomposition was published in 1985. It was premiered in 1989 by Gotifried Sembdner. Parts 2and 3 were published in 1991. The first complete performance was given by Sembdner in 1993in St-Pauls Cathedral in London. Jan Vriend (*1938) studied piano, music theory andcomposition at the Amsterdam Conservatory, percussion at the Utrecht Conservatory andelectronic music at the Dutch Institute for Sonology. He was a pupil of Ton de Leeuw andlannis Xenakis and others. Like Xenakis, Vriend likes complexity and mathema-tics in hiscompositions, In 1985, Jan Vriend stated: ‘An organ is like a fountain of thou-sands ofpipes, sprinkling their sound through space! This explains the title and the content ofJets d’Orgue. Each part con-sists of three sections, each of which in turn consists ofthree subsections. Each of the nine sections begins with a Jet’, which sounds like anexplosion or a cataract of sound. These ‘Jets’ are followed by a homophonic or apolyphonic centre part. The sec-tions are closed with exploration of the effects an organis capa-ble of. Jets d’Orgue requires a relatively large, at least three manual organ.Vriend used the organ of the Grote Kerk at Haarlem as a reference.

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