Wednesday, April 8, 2009

'Surprise is essential'


Louis Andriessen, the 70-year-old Dutch master of countercultural art-music, loves Bach, Stravinsky, Charlie Parker and Cecil Taylor; praises and practices improvisation; wonders why Mahler symphonies are "so boring;" and roundly disses the 19th-century style of "sentimental, precious, hear-me-beautiful playing," in an interview with Elissa Poole in The Globe and Mail of Toronto:

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090406.AANDRIESSEN06ART1624/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Music/