Douwe Eisenga: Poetry of a City
Butler Records

In keeping with poems posted on the walls in and around the centre of his home city Middelburg, the music Dutch composer Douwe Eisenga created in response to the texts emphasizes his contemplative and introspective sides. It's hardly the first time the composer of For Mattia has created music of such kind; in contrast, however, to 2022's The Border (also on Butler Records), Poetry of a City largely downplays elaborate presentations for simpler piano-centred arrangements. Of course, Eisenga, being sensitive to timbre and sound design, can't help but augment the keyboard with other instrument sounds, but they're applied subtly.

On the forty-two-minute release, Eisenga translates a selection of the twenty-four poems into instrumental form. Apparently, on the walls where the texts are displayed, a code allows the viewer to hear the music and experience it with the text. All but one are Eisenga originals, the exception “Zilverspa For Piano,” which saw the composer so captivated by a song his friend and fellow Middelburg resident Broeder Dieleman wrote that he decided to recast the piece as a piano requiem, albeit in miniature, in memory of his mother. In fact, his treatment of “Zilverspa” is so emblematic of Eisenga's own writing one might understandably mistake it for a composition by him.

Similar to other music Eisenga's issued, Poetry of a City carves out its own genre-defying space, even if elements of classical minimalism surface now and then. His harmonious music pulses with a light, breezy touch, its animation enhanced by soothing atmospheric design and a general sense of peace and tranquility. Gently pulsing, “Have I Not Tried” introduces the set with a melancholy, brooding expression that's signature Eisenga. Insistent propulsion adds a palpable sense of tension to the music, which slowly blossoms when strings emerge to punctuate the piano's triplet patterns. Certainly one of the piece's distinguishing aspects is the way it gradually rises to a dramatic crescendo before pulling back for a quiet resolution and abrupt end. Meditative reveries like “Elements” and “Always the Sea” perpetuate the downcast tone of the opener, though with delicacy and grace. The presence of marimba alongside piano in “Suddenly He Sang” naturally calls to mind minimalism of the Reich kind, though Eisenga's piece deploys rhythm and repetition as building blocks for a fully developed composition that, similar to “Have I Not Tried,” incrementally builds in intensity and drama. If there's a criticism to be laid, it has to do with his repeated use of a trajectory involving slow build, climax, and de-escalation. By the time “Evening” arrives, the music starts to suffer from an overreliance on the template.

October 2023