3 recordings based on the installation Ode, as presented at Tweetakt festival, Utrecht (NL). spring 2018
tweetakt.nl/en/program/ode
Review by Simon Cummings at 5against4:
"Intriguing for different reasons – as well as being the most miniature thing i’ve been sent in a long time – is Ode by Dutch composer Jeroen Diepenmaat. The work is connected to an installation Diepenmaat made for the Tweetakt Festival in Utrecht last month. A relatively simple exercise in assembled music boxes, it’s presented on Ode in three versions. The second of them, trek, is a ‘clean’ version of the piece, in which the 18 music boxes are quickly wound up one after the other, producing an amazing chorus of the same tune that acts to ‘distil’ it in such a way that it becomes a cycling, clustered mobile of its pitches, clarified as each one drops out until only one remains. In the live version, ode at Tweetakt, the tune is different and Diepenmaat takes his time over it a little more, but that interesting ‘distillation’ effect (not unlike the strange waves of distilled sound that occur in Steve Reich’s early tape pieces) occurs again, albeit in a slightly more halting way. Personally, i find the opening track, min, to be even more engaging, where a single music box cycles round its sweet little tune with notes dropping out each time. It’s especially impressive how there’s no audible sign of human interference, so the cumulative effect is of the box itself seemingly forgetting its own melody, becoming a beautiful and surprisingly poignant study."
5against4.com/2018/06/21/tom-mudd-gutter-synthesis-jeroen-diepenmaat-ode/
Review by Frans de Waard in Vital Weekly 1135:
"On 'Ode' Diepenmaat presents a documentation of an installation he did in Utrecht, where he used fourteen musical boxes. On 'Min', on the A-side, the tune keeps repeating but every time one note is removed and in the end one just hears the mechanic of the box. A very simply, straightforward idea of course, but I must say it sounds beautiful; almost like a very sad song about decay (decomposition would be the right word I guess). In 'Trek' ("pull"), all the music boxes sound at the same time, and while one could think it would be very chaotic, it isn't. It is gentle and poetic. 'Ode' then, the final short piece on the second side is a documentation of how the installation sounded in the space, complete with its natural reverb. These are three different approaches to the usic box and it works out pretty well in all three pieces."
www.vitalweekly.net/1135.html