Roukens: Concerto Hypnagogique

Over the last two weeks I have been firmly on the Adams trail, surveying some major works in the process. However, before I summarise those listening impressions I'd like to make to make note of a very interesting discovery. Joey Roukens is a very young Dutch composer (°1982) who is starting to make a name for himself. In 2010 the Royal Concertgebouw commissioned an orchestral piece from him (Out of Control, 16') and in 2011 the Concerto Hypnagogique was premiered by the Radio Kamer Filharmonie led by Thierry Fischer and Ralph van Raat on piano as soloist. It is this piece that I discovered via Dutch Radio 4's Concerthuis. Sadly, the recording of the May 12th Zaterdagmatinee is not available anymore. For the time being we'll have to do with two longish excerpts on the composer's YouTube channel. Roukens describes the piece as follows on his website:

A piece for piano and orchestra evoking images, moods and atmospheres one might experience in a state of hypnagogia - the borderland state between wake and sleep -, ranging from the delicately ethereal to the wildly frenzied. There are four movements:

I. Prelude (Strange Glowing Shapes)
II. Running through Lucid Dreams
III. Chorale and Landscape
IV. Final

I was immediately smitten after the first audition. Roukens' musical idiom is very accessible. Tonal through and through and with plenty of references to 19th and 20th century models there is a lot to latch on to for experienced listeners. But the 40' concerto is played without a break, there is no recognisable formal template, the orchestration is exceptionally vivid and the level of invention is very high, with bucketloads of ideas piled on top of one another. All this lends the piece a cinematic and even kaleidoscopic quality that may prove to be disorienting for first-time hearers. The reference to cinema is not unjustified as we might listen to the work as the soundtrack for a wild, garish, manga-like filmfest. The surface brilliance, references to popular culture and strong visual images also remind us of the spirit of John Adams. Other reference points that came to mind are Danny Elfman's 1989 score for Batman, Guillaume Connesson's Cosmic Trilogy and Kevin Volans' Third Piano Concerto that was premiered at the Proms last year.

I find this Concerto Hypnagogique very gratifying to listen to. The piece does not have the metaphysical ambitions of a Missa Solemnis. Rather we need to place it more in the lineage of the Lisztean tone poem: colourful canvases for virtuosic orchestral display. It does indeed strike me more as a symphonic piece with an obligato piano part rather than as a concerto pur sang.

I've roamed the internet to get access to other pieces from the hand of Joey Roukens. His own YouTube channel offers fragments from a number of other compositions. Via Radio 4's channel we can hear a full performance of the 40' Percussion Concerto. There is a nice video portrait (in Dutch) made in the runup to the premiere of the Hypnagogique here. Whilst there is a lot that confirms the amazing talent and orchestral imagination of this young composer (take, for instance, the excerpts from Scenes from an Old Memorybox) it seems to me that the Concerto Hypnagogique puts his abilities in the very best light. I'll certainly keep track of Joey Roukens. And I hope we can count on having access to a recording of this wonderful piece very soon (back to back with Volans new concerto, that would be something ...).