Death is an inexhaustible theme in the arts. Poets and composers take many approaches: consoling and raging, boisterous and sarcastic. Komrij's 'Dutch Poetry', a voluminous and erudite tribute to two hundred years of Dutch-language poetry, illustrates the way poets deal with death. After several readings from this work under the title 'De Dunne Komrij', Gerrit Komrij has now selected a ready-made on mortality. 'De Dunne Komrij' is a nickname for literature from all ages read by a select group of performers. The basis principles are a love of poetry and an aversion to the unbending air of sanctity. I
n an enthralling performance of Bach's Fifth Cello Suite by Roel Dieltiens, this consoling music is both sounding board and dissonant. You hear this profound masterpiece unravelled and fragmented, in a serene encounter with the poets on duty.
Villanella is putting this literary-musical programme together as part of the 'Bach Academy Mein Verlangen'. The purpose is beauty and disruption, seriousness and mirth, euphoria and melancholy.