Henk Badings
(Bandoeng 17-1-1907 - Maarheeze 26-6-1987)
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Henk Badings(Bandoeng 17-1-1907 - Maarheeze 26-6-1987) |
Contents A Dutch Composer of Great Stature New edition of the Missa Brevis Compositions for choir Compositions for organ
Just a few Dutch artists enjoy an international reputation. Who in the world
has never heard of Rembrandt, the famous Dutch painter of the 17th century?
And a more recent name like Vincent van Gogh is known everywhere too.
The most celebrated Dutch composer of the 17th century is Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck,
who was internationally recognised in his own time too. Composers from all parts
of Europe came to learn from him in Amsterdam. One even came from southern Russia,
near the Black Sea. Through his north-German pupils, indeed, Sweelinck's musical
heritage was finally passed on to J.S. Bach.
The composer Henk Badings is a 20th-century figure of great stature. He too
was internationally recognised, travelled all round the world, and was professor
at the universities of Utrecht (Holland), Adelaide (Australia), the State High
School for Music in Stuttgart (Germany) and the Point Part College in Pittburgh
(U.S.A.). He also worked for some time in South Africa to fit out a modern electronic
music studio.
Most remarkable of all is perhaps that as a musician he was a self-made man.
When his first symphony was performed by Holland's top orchestra, the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra, he was still a student of mining technique at the university
of Delft (Holland). After graduating cum laude as a mining engineer his
career as a musician went like lightning: shortly afterwards he was appointed
to teach composition at the conservatory of Amsterdam, and a little later he
became director of the conservatory of The Hague. His ability as a composer
was undeniable: a vast stream of works, the one so different from the other,
issued from his pen.
Where did this talent come from? He was born in 1907 of Dutch parents in Bandung,
Indonesia. After the sudden death of his parents in 1917 he was taken to his
family in Holland, where he received a thorough education and was allowed to
study a "serious subject" at one of Holland's best-known universities. Music
was fine as a hobby, as long as there were no professional ambitions which would
mean training to be a beggar! But fate determined another, quite remarkable
road. As an engineer and autodidactic musician Badings climbed almost immediately
to high positions in the professional music world, and won an impressive series
of major international prizes, too many to mention here. Suffice it to say that
he was awarded the Prix Italia twice, in 1954 and 1971. He was one of
the innovators of electronic music; after experimenting in the Philips' laboratories
in Eindhoven he pursued this work for some time in Cologne.
Badings' oeuvre is wide-ranging, as I have said. Besides seven major operas,
I would mention De Nachtwacht (Rembrandt), ballet music (both "traditional"
and electronic), some fifteen symphonies, an abundance of chamber music for
the most varied ensembles, and innumerable vocal works. He wrote for professional
musicians, while not neglecting the skilled amateur.
For further reading I would recommend the work of the American writer Paul T.
Klemme, Henk Badings, Catalog of Works (Harmonie Park Press, Michigan
USA), and the specific Catalogue of Choral Works by Henk Badings compiled
by Pieter van Moergastel immediately after his death in 1987 (published by the
Brabants Conservatorium, Tilburg, Holland).
It is impossible to reduce Badings' music to a common denominator; the style,
superficially at least, is highly varied. Recurring features include the frequent
employment of polyphonic structures, in the line of the great Renaissance composers
of the Netherlands such as Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez. At various points
in his works one encounters impressive canonic structures - double canons, proportional
canons etc., undoubtedly inspired by the above-mentioned Early Masters. At the
same time one finds modernisms, including 31-tone music: here again the roots
are found in the Renaissance (Vincentino). As has been said, Badings was at
the same time quite capable of thinking up the nicest of things for the amateur!!
It is therefore hardly surprising that he was one of the few composers of this
century who, at a certain stage in his career, was able to live very comfortably,
and in Badings' case flamboyantly, from composing.
Though his works are sometimes complex, he never wrote an unplayable piece.
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The Dutch composer Henk Badings wrote two complete masses, the Missa Brevis
(1946) and the Missa Antiphonica (1985); the former work includes a Creed, unlike
the latter mass for double choir. The publishers Annie Bank are to be commended
for their recent new edition of the "old" Missa Brevis for unaccompanied SATB.
The undersigned was given the honourable task of editing this edition, allowing
me the opportunity to write an introduction.
In this introduction I have sketched the historical background of the work,
and I could not resist the temptation to point out a number of striking musical
and technical moments.
Comparison of this new, meticulously prepared edition with the previous one
will reveal several differences. Thanks to the assistance of Mrs. Hetty Badings,
the composer's widow, I was able to consult the manuscript. Thus it was possible
to print Badings' original intonations for the Gloria and Creed alongside the
customary plainchant ones, which are perhaps more practical if the mass is performed
during a service. The original motto pro jure, libertate et justitia has
also been published and commented on in the introduction to this new edition.
In his Missa Brevis Badings displays his ability to create remarkable harmonic
tension with relatively few notes. The kyrie, with its resolute organ point
in the bass, forms a striking beginning to this composition. Badings set this
text again on several later occasions, including a work for equal voices.
At the beginning of the Missa Brevis a good unaccompanied choir will be able
to sing pure-tuned intervals above this c in the bass. Fine upper-partial chords
will thus arise, a matter that continued to fascinate Badings. In a certain
period he even expressed this desire in terms of a 31-note system. This was
rather forbidding, however, especially for amateur choirs. He abandoned this
approach later, particularly because a good choir can really achieve the required
purity anyway. In this work the dominant seventh chord in bar 12 of the Kyrie
is an obvious example; it needs to be sung with pure intervals.
Remarkable too in the Gloria and Sanctus, for example, are the chords moving
in linear contrary motion in major seconds. In the Gloria we therefore see the
following major triads placed successively from bar 30
A G F Eb Db Cb and subsequently Ab Gb E D C Bb
(the notes of the two whole-tone scales)
This passage ends in bars 34-35 with the tetrachord progression Bb -E. A similar
progression occurs at the beginning of the Sanctus, for instance.
Highly effective is the 'Tristan' chord at the end of the Sanctus (f b d#'
g# '); a moment of great tension, after which the Benedictus must follow!
For what type of choir is this Missa Brevis suitable?
For good church choirs and for the better chamber choirs. The main problems
concern intonation. If a choir cannot sing a whole-tone scale after some exercise,
then it is better not to attempt this work. Not that the Missa Brevis contains
such strange chords, but the manner in which many normal major triads in particular
are linked together is most surprising - it requires some getting used too,
but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
The Netherlands Chamber Choir has performed the Missa Brevis during its recent tour of European concert halls.
Pieter van Moergastel (1942-1996)
Henk Badings, Missa Brevis for unaccompanied SATB. Published by Annie
Bank Music Publishers, Amstelveen, Holland.
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published by Annie Bank Music Publishers
Missa Brevis 1946 - SATB a cappella ordernr. Bad 2 Trois Chansons Bretonnes 1946 - La nuit en mer - SSAATTBB and pianoordernr. Bad 4a - La complainte des âmes - SSATTB a cappella
published by Annie Bank Music Publishers
Passacaglia Piccola per organo (for manuals only) ordernr. Bad 12 Quattro pezzi per organo ordernr. Bad 14Back to Contents