'Every way to reach good notes is opportune,' thought composer Louis Andriessen. New biography outlines his life, loves, and difficult sides

Once upon a time, there was a talented latecomer in a musical family who grew up to be the greatest composer in the Netherlands. 'Once upon a time...' is what writer and music publicist Jacqueline Oskamp calls the opening chapter of Groots is de liefde , her narrative and highly readable biography of Louis Andriessen (1939-2021), and with that she sets the tone. The tendency to fabulate is ingrained in the Andriessens and their orally transmitted family chronicle of cool one-liners and anecdotes forms a grateful, often witty counterpoint for the biographer.

Father Hendrik was going to be a journalist, but as the youngest clerk in a newspaper office he was so absorbed in a score during the night shift that he missed the sinking of the Titanic. Oops. He became a successful composer, music manager and pedagogue, including the first teacher of his composing sons Jurriaan (1925-1996) and Louis.

Louis Andriessen was a figurehead of Dutch music for sixty years, during an unprecedented period of prosperity that roughly coincided with his career. With De Staat (1976) he also established his name internationally, his magnum opus De Materie (1989) travelled the world and since the turn of the century his major premieres have often taken place in the US or other foreign countries. Composers-in-training came from all over to study with him and his influence extends far beyond the national borders.

The best source is the private archive to which Andriessen biographer Oskamp gave access

Biographer Oskamp previously wrote several well-received books on twentieth-century music in the Netherlands, such as Een vaste kabaal (A decent noise) and Onder stroom (on electronic music). The image of Dutch musical life remains somewhat general in this biography, but she sketches Andriessen's development and personal life all the more vividly, always in relation to his work. "Every way to arrive at good notes – except murdering people – is opportune," she quotes him as saying. For an insider's view of Andriessen's composition process, the interested reader can consult the small-but-fine Keten & stompen (Cheese & stomps) by his good friend and fellow composer Elmer Schönberger.

Private archive

Oskamp spoke to Andriessen himself several times, interviewed numerous intimates and acquaintances and received full cooperation from Andriessen's widow, violinist Monica Germino. But the most enjoyable source is the private archive to which Andriessen gave her access, with diary entries, correspondence and notes about his work. Oskamp displays a keen eye for striking details; for example, Andriessen writes about the "empathic ailments" he suffers from after the death of his first wife: guitarist, artist and therapist Jeanette Yanikian (1935-2008): "I have problems with my knee, with my teeth, all things that Jeanette had. A surprising form of mourning."

Oskamp is not afraid to point out Andriessen's bad manners (or the family's nasty 'cultural Catholic' anti-Semitism). Andriessen usually made a cheerful impression, he was charming and jovial and an easy talker, with a large social network and a left-wing anarchist outlook. But he could also be very forceful. He avoided conflicts, so that the anger turned inward. Oskamp notices a great need to prove himself and a desire for confirmation, the pressure to be "a good Andriessen", in a Bach-worshipping family where playing music at the highest level is completely self-evident. Andriessen kept clamoring for the approval of father Hendrik and brother Jurriaan, who had little time for the music of the youngest brother.

The remarkable title Groots is de liefde refers to the song Magna res est amor that father Hendrik Andriessen composed on a text from Thomas a Kempis' On the Imitation of Christ . The Andriessens liked to sing it at family funerals, if only to deflect their emotions. Louis quoted the song extensively in one of his most striking late works, Mysteriën for the 125-year-old Concertgebouw Orchestra. Mysteriën marked his return to the symphony orchestra, forty years after he had renounced it (although in a diary entry shortly before the premiere he still calls the RCO "the enemy").

The father, the family, the difficult relationship with the symphony orchestra: these are important aspects in Andriessen's life. Love itself also played a major role for him. Oskamp describes a telling conversation at De wereld draait door , where Andriessen was a guest with his monodrama Anaïs Nin about the eponymous writer, known for her candid diaries and countless affairs. Matthijs van Nieuwkerk asks whether Nin was addicted to sex. Fellow guest Heleen van Royen thinks she was addicted to the game. No, says Andriessen decisively: "She was addicted to love."

Mistresses

In the previous four hundred pages, the reader has already seen dozens, if not hundreds of mistresses, with whom he sometimes maintained intensive contact. "If Andriessen can identify with anyone, it is with Anaïs: she too has an insatiable hunger for attention and confirmation. No matter how many men she sleeps with, they cannot take away her loneliness, fear and insecurity," Oskamp observes.

Jeanette was his first and sharpest critic, who awakened Andriessen's activist and radical side and made high demands on him

Andriessen liked to talk about his father and brother, about heroes like Stravinsky and Ravel, but it was less visible to the outside world how crucial his first wife Jeanette Yanikian was to his development. They had been life partners since he was twenty and she was four years older. They had an open relationship, survived crises, became estranged from each other, but above all Jeanette was his first and sharpest critic, who awakened Andriessen's activist and radical side and made high demands on him. Without Jeanette there would be no De Staat , Oskamp states. Without her approval, a score would not leave the door. Andriessen acknowledged that influence, in a self-conscious note he made when Jeanette turned out to be seriously ill: "Without her I would not have become such a good composer."

The cocktail of affairs, illness and work pressure leads to a bizarre coincidence in September 2007 that reads like the premise of a Woody Allen film: "His wife is terminally ill, he is in love with a married woman, and may have fathered a child with his mistress." Two weeks later, Jeanette moves to a nursing home; two days after that, Andriessen receives a referral letter to a psychiatrist; the next day, his son is born. Andriessen is 68. Any doubts about his paternity can be dismissed immediately: "The baby has the Andriessens' round head."

Characteristic of Andriessen's work ethic and discipline, even in the face of adversity: a month later the score of the great music theatre work La Commedia is ready. According to many, it is his best opera, and he is the first Dutchman to receive the prestigious American Grawemeyer Award for it.