Louis Andriessen, avant-garde composer of ‘personal, aggressive’ music, dies at 82
Tim Page
Louis Andriessen, perhaps the leading Dutch composer since the death of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck in the 17th century and an embodiment of the international avant-garde since the 1960s, died July 1 in Weesp, a suburb of Amsterdam. He was 82.
He died at a care facility that promotes “humanized living for people with severe dementia.” The death was announced by Boosey & Hawkes, Mr. Andriessen’s longtime publisher.
A famously gentle man and beloved teacher, Mr. Andriessen (pronounced an-DREE-sen) regularly wrote music that was loud, hard and fierce. “A typical Andriessen ensemble will have banks of saxophones and brass, electric guitars, drum kit and synthesisers all shouting in jagged unison,” critic Ivan Hewlett wrote in the Daily Telegraph 2002. A piece called “Workers Union” (1975) was scored for “any loud-sounding group of instruments.”