Ton de leeuw – Symphony for Winds – Haiku 2 – Resonances

Here are some orchestral works from Ton de Leeuw. Most interesting piece will be Haiku 2, in which the composer experimented with positions of the solo instruments (he placed them outside the orchestra) and had the singer move around freely.
Parts of the texts, derived from famous haiku poet Basho, were cut up into syllables which were then pasted in random order and sung accordingly. You might consider it a Dada technique that somehow goes well with the condensed, compact haiku. In this poetic form every word can have so many associated meanings as to become almost abstract – or non-words. Like when you mix various colours and it becomes black or white; strictly speaking these are no colours, and yet have them all. De Leeuw understood the workings of this kind of poetry well.
Haiku 2, then, can be seen as both a musical and literary statement.