Lucie Horsch performs 'Sweet' by Louis Andriessen

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen passed away on the 1st of July 2021. In honour of him, I am sharing this live performance with you of his piece 'Sweet', which he composed in 1964 and dedicated to the Dutch recorder player Frans Brüggen. The piece is written for treble recorder and tape.
The music starts out seemingly peaceful and sweet, but the atmosphere becomes more and more distorted, until the chaos eventually culminates in a mental black-out, during which the performer is unable to continue and the electronically pre-recorded tape takes over. After this section, the performer continues to play the same musical material which already appeared in the beginning of the piece, completely unaffected by the black-out.
'Sweet' is one of the most revolutionary pieces which were written for the recorder in the 1960s when the instrument started to become popular again in The Netherlands, under the influence of Frans Brüggen. By composing 'Sweet', Louis Andriessen extended the borders of what was deemed to be possible on the recorder, not only by literally extending the range of the instrument, but also by prescribing abrupt dynamic contrasts which are almost impossible to realise on the recorder in the extremely different registers.