Uploaded March 2011 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
Ellen Schurling, soprano; Håkon Austbø, piano. Kind en Kraai ("Child and Crow"), Op. 26 (1977) is a song cycle set to a text by Harry Mulisch. Schat claimed to have focused on the great song cycles of Schubert, Schumann and Schoenberg (Das Buch der hägenden Gärten), primarily for the purpose of reminding the listender "of what a song cycle used to be." An overt rhythmic reference to "Das ist in Flöten und Geigen" from Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe can be heard in Vergezicht ("Vista.") Mulisch's eleven poems recount the story of a bitter life "from cradle to grave,' dramatically defined by the tension between a father and son and the Oedipal relationship between the son and his mother. The music also harks back to childhood, symbolized in the overture for piano by the motto "hoor wie klopt die kinderen" ("hark, who knocks, children") in the left hand and the theme of fifths from the Pasacaglia and Fugue, op. 1(which the aspiring composer wrote at the age of eighteen), the tonal material of which is developed here into a complete twelve-tone field. Particularly striking are the provocative triads in the overture, which the piano and voice take up in the introduction of the opening song "Boezem" ("Bosom"). Later, too, the triad is heard continuously, both in the form of the passacaglia theme and in the vocal part. In the ninth song, appropriately called "Samenhang" ("Coherence"), the overture returns. Because of the strategic deployment of imperfect (e.g., minor seconds, minor thirds) and perfect intervals (e.g., fourths, fifths, octaves, Schat still considered Kind en Kraai primarily an "intervallic, two-tone composition," an "intermediate step between the individual pitch, as it appears in Schoenberg's music, and the triad." Thematically speaking, Schat uses a "light touch" despite the dramatic character of the music. Kind en Kraai sounds much more "alienated" than "tragic," largely owing to the wonderfully light and agile piano part with its frequent Impressionistic overtones, again attesting to Schat's innate talent as a pianist.
Ellen Schurling, soprano; Håkon Austbø, piano. Kind en Kraai ("Child and Crow"), Op. 26 (1977) is a song cycle set to a text by Harry Mulisch. Schat claimed to have focused on the great song cycles of Schubert, Schumann and Schoenberg (Das Buch der hägenden Gärten), primarily for the purpose of reminding the listender "of what a song cycle used to be." An overt rhythmic reference to "Das ist in Flöten und Geigen" from Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe can be heard in Vergezicht ("Vista.") Mulisch's eleven poems recount the story of a bitter life "from cradle to grave,' dramatically defined by the tension between a father and son and the Oedipal relationship between the son and his mother. The music also harks back to childhood, symbolized in the overture for piano by the motto "hoor wie klopt die kinderen" ("hark, who knocks, children") in the left hand and the theme of fifths from the Pasacaglia and Fugue, op. 1(which the aspiring composer wrote at the age of eighteen), the tonal material of which is developed here into a complete twelve-tone field. Particularly striking are the provocative triads in the overture, which the piano and voice take up in the introduction of the opening song "Boezem" ("Bosom"). Later, too, the triad is heard continuously, both in the form of the passacaglia theme and in the vocal part. In the ninth song, appropriately called "Samenhang" ("Coherence"), the overture returns. Because of the strategic deployment of imperfect (e.g., minor seconds, minor thirds) and perfect intervals (e.g., fourths, fifths, octaves, Schat still considered Kind en Kraai primarily an "intervallic, two-tone composition," an "intermediate step between the individual pitch, as it appears in Schoenberg's music, and the triad." Thematically speaking, Schat uses a "light touch" despite the dramatic character of the music. Kind en Kraai sounds much more "alienated" than "tragic," largely owing to the wonderfully light and agile piano part with its frequent Impressionistic overtones, again attesting to Schat's innate talent as a pianist.
