Stichting H-F V.A. : 50 Jaar Stichting Huygens-Fokker (NL/RU/GUI,1954-1997,pub.1999)***°
Adriaan Daniël Fokker was born in Java of Dutch parents. After a degree of mining engeneer and physics, studying with A.Einstein, E.Rutherford and W.Bragg he quickly became professor at the University of Delft. After the second world war he studied music theory, and became inspired 17th century’s 31-tone system by Christiaan Huygens, so he developed an organ to make music with this system possible. In 1951 the Fokker organ was installed in Teylers museum in Haarlem, containing a two 31-tone keyboards and one 12-tone keyboard. Since 1960 a Foundation has been established by professor Fokker to promote microtonal music, western and non-western.
I won’t review the tracks too much now, but I noticed how the 31-tone system on the pieces by Peter Schat (organ) and Henk Badings (2 violins) sounds very natural to me. The piece by Ivan Wyschnegradsky sounds contradictory weird. It was Jos Zwaaneburg’s piece which was the reason for me to check this album out. Here he also demonstrated new techniques for flute. He also used an alt flute with open clacks, where one could produce the 31-tone system. The interaction between the organ, flute improvisation and some live electronic textures remains interesting, which at some points has more convincing interaction than on other more random combinations, but with a second listen it made its point more clear. The reason might be that the 31-tone system here is used as a floating system without any tonality preference, which at certain points gives more surprising and vivid harmonies but also a few lesser important or more interfering moments too, blurring the surprise a bit, even when the piece remains interesting. Rafael Reina’s piece incorporates Carnatic music with extra microtonal additions. This sounds unnatural and even wrong at times.
