Music of the Week: June 13, 2025: Simeon ten Holt / Rondane Kwartet – Canto Ostinato
Music of the Week
Canto Ostinato
Simeon ten Holt
June 13, 2025
Music of the Week, June 13, 2025
Canto Ostinato
Simeon ten Holt
Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt described his work as being structured like the genetic code, which is perfectly expressed via the repetitive though minimally varying tonal patterns that compose his famous Canto Ostinato. There are over 100 such patterns or tonal cells in this work, each comprising only a few bars.
At times, the piece creates a never-ending soundscape that seems like a running river with tiny Schauberger swirls and eddies that move the listener along his or her own journey of concentration. At other times, it seems to snap you out of the spiral of notes into a new environment of perception.
The Canto Ostinato can be played by different instruments and different numbers of musicians, or even solo. One ensemble in Dresden played the piece in a version for drums, organ, and piano.
Here we have the most frequently used combination of four pianoforti and a magnificent performance by the Dutch Rondane Kwartet. The players are fully focused on their parts and yet interacting like four minds painting a common musical cosmos. Mesmerizing.
Catherine saw a performance of Canto live earlier this year in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden.
Links
Canto Ostinato (Wikipedia)
Simeon ten Holt [1923–2012] (Website)
How to play the Canto Ostinato. Instructions by Simeon ten Holt
Over Canto – Documentary film by Ramón Maria Gieling about the Canto Ostinato (with English subtitles)
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I’m laughing, as music can be so personal. I tried to listen to this, but then clicked into their site and switched to Bach concerto for 4 Pianos in a minor BWV which was, for me, so lovely. Thanks for the link to such fine musicians.