Maktub

In the 1960s and ‘70s, European music was dominated by a style now referred to as “modern music.” The principal figures in this trend included Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, and Pierre Boulez. Music, they contended, must first and foremost have an investigative value and purpose; it must be able to be justified and verified as though it were a hard science. Tristan Keuris (1946-1996), one of the Netherlands’ major composers, lived and worked during this period. With his penchant for melodic shape and Romantic gesture, he felt at odds with his times. The voice of Keuris continues on in his most prominent pupil, Willem Jeths, who seems intent on composing such music as his teacher was not “allowed” to compose. About Maktub, Jeths adds:

Maktub is a term from alchemy. In Arabic it means “it is written.” From a mystic standpoint it means that everything is already known to the One (God), and therefore that destiny exists. Maktub can be heard as a mystic Adagio. The dynamic range generally moves between piano and pianissimo; the mood is languid; the tonality is set in the minor mode but contains a modal Arabic inflection. Maktub is a reflection on the temporality of our earthly existence. I have previously addressed this theme (inspired by Goethe’s West-Östlicher Divan) in my first symphony: beginning (birth) and ending (death) are the same. But what comes in between is already known—Maktub.

(c) Jason Stell and Willem Jeths