Canarie

12 Variations on an Old Dutch Dance Tune

For Recorder Trio
32 Pages Score and Three Parts. 19,90 €
Playtime: 13:30

A real concert piece!
Joachim van den Hove (1567 - 1620) was one of the most famous lutenists of his time. He even taught two Princes of Orange. One of his most famous compositions is Canarie, relating to a dance from the Canary Islands (hence the name), that expresses a "fiery wooing" with a lot of "jumps, stamping of the feet and violent movements", as Wikipedia tells us. There are some recordings on Youtube, and all my piano pupils in the late 80’s were required to learn it, because it suits so well for improvising. Since then, I have wanted to write variations for recorder trio on Canarie. When I began 20 years later, I simply let myself get carried away by the tremendous passion and energy that is in this little piece. Sopranino, alto, tenor, bass, great bass and contrabass are used, as well as multiple tempi and metres, and you hear all the variations that love puts in us. I wish to thank the ensemble Flutes en bloc for the fabulous premiere in the 28th of June in Hamburg.

The dutch recorder magazine "blokfluitist" wrote about it:
"The canarie was a renaissance dance, popular in Europe, known for its fast steps and leaps that were also supposed to be rather audible. Many recorder players will have encountered the 16 bar phrase canarie of Joachim van der Hoven in early play books or ensemble pieces and recognise it immediately. Sören Sieg (*1966) on this old Dutch tune: “It is a very strong melody through its simplicity and mirth, I could never get it out of my mind. It is remarkable to be so connected to a composer of 400 years ago. Imagine a composer in the year 2416 making variations to one of my compositions.” Sieg wrote twelve variations on the canarie melody and used many different possibilities. He adds an anacrusis, the melody is stretched out, and he uses alternate keys (tonalities), counter parts and different line ups to create various unique atmospheres. Rhythmically some variations are quite a challenge, for example when triplets are played against two eight-notes (quavers). Each variation is distinctive in atmosphere but meant to be played after one another.
In a few variations one can clearly hear the musical signature of Sören Sieg and it reminds me of his composition Pina ya Phala. The most favourite of the composer is variation number six which gained the title “Yearning”. It is the longest of the twelve variations but it could have easily lasted longer in my opinion. Personally I also appreciate variation number three, “Restless”. The variations have different line ups and to play all of them you need a trio that can play alto, tenor, bass, c-bass and double bass recorder, and sopranino. The beautifully designed edition is available through the composer himself, www.soerensieg.de."
(Translation: Roselin van der Torren)

Theme: Canarie - Variation 1: Funny - Variation 2: Wistful - Variation 3: Restless - Variation 4: Cheerful - Variation 5: Fluent - Variation 6: Longing - Variation 7: Excited - Variation 8: Hopeful - Variation 9: Sad - Variation10: Solemnly - Variation 11: Happy - Variation 12: Jubilantly

For an order just press the button down on the right, then an Email appears that you can send to me with the request for the piece and the technical details of the order.