Exposition

From Clare Fischer to Olivier Messiaen: Broadening my creative potential as composer / arranger (last edited: 2017)

Thomas Böttcher
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About this exposition

In the course of my professional life, the main focus of my work had lain on being a side man, arranging/composing and performing for/with other people. While I had found a great deal of satisfaction doing so, I felt that I had put aside if not sometimes forgotten the question of how to nourish and broaden my creative potential and initiate projects of my own. My dream was and still is to strengthen and discover my own voice as composer and arranger within the Latin genre and beyond, giving my creativity the necessary room and musical nourishment to flourish and making writing/arranging the core activity of my professional musicianship, as performer of my own music and writing for others. For my research I decided to focus on the works of a great arranger and a great contemporary composer: Clare Fischer and Olivier Messiaen. I got first acquainted to Fischer’s works, when I saw him give a workshop at Codarts in 2001 and was deeply touched by his music , which seemed simple and complex at the same time. Already back then I was intrigued by his often very surprising harmonisation of simple melodies and his use of unconventional voicings. Having played the organ as an adolescent, I vaguely knew some works of Messiaen, but did not really appreciate them at the time. Later I heard “Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus” and was fascinated by the organic coexistence of atonal passages and late romantic harmony and the use of musical forms and variable rhythm that were totally new to me. Choosing the topic of my research, I presumed that the study of Fischer’s work would especially broaden my horizon as an arranger, while the research on Messiaen would help to open up my potential to be creative as a composer. Obviously, it is not always possible to strictly separate composing from arranging, and I hoped that the insights I could gain from both would be complementary. Thus, I formulated the following research question: How can I strengthen my voice as a composer/arranger, studying the musical language of Olivier Messiaen and the way it is influenced by the narrative aspect within his writing, and the use of voicings and harmony in the arrangements/compositions of pianist Clare Fischer?
typeresearch exposition
date24/02/2017
last modified25/02/2017
statusin progress
share statuspublic
affiliationCodarts
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/335656/335657
external linkwww.codarts.nl


Copyrights

nameThomas Bottcher final ar report
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespdf
name28 Thomas Bottcher left hand loop with Messiaen motives right hand
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesaudio
name27 Messiaen longer phrase with sequencial material
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name26 Messiaen returning phrase
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name25 Willem Tanke left hand loop with Messiaen motives
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
licenseAll rights reserved
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name24 Willem Tanke left hand loop
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name23 Messiaen line expanding
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name22 Messiaen passage bot hands
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name21 Messiaen's chords on a dominant
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name20 Messiaen's chords on mode III
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name19 Messiaen's chords on mode II
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name18 Thomas Bottcher etude harmonised
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name17 Thomas Bottcher etude without harmony
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name16 Messiaen motive harmonised faster tempo
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name15 Messiaen motive harmonised slow rubato
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name14 organ improvisation 5
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name13 organ improvisation 4
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name12 Organ improvisation 3
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name11 Organ improvisation 2
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name10 Organ improvisation 1
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name09 Agnus Dei with mode III
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name08 Agnus Dei mode II
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name07 Agnus Dei with chords on dominat
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name05 Thomas Bottcher piano arrangement - Ich bin von Kopf bis Fu+ƒ auf Liebe eingestellt
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio
name04 lds XVIII played slowly by Willem Tanke
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name03 La Nativite¦ü du Seigneur - 8. Les Mages
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name02 Du, du liegst mir im Herzen
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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name01 reference recording Autumn Colours string quartet
copyright(c) Thomas Böttcher
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usagesaudio

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