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June Emerson: For the Goodbye (Saxophone & Organ)

A few words from Hans van Eck

‘For the Goodbye’ is an elaboration of an earlier sketch for piano. I composed the original music the day after the death of my mother as a very personal reaction to this life-changing event. From now on I was without any parents. On request by a saxophone-accordion duo, I elaborated this sketch into a composition that stands out in my oeuvre as the only real auto-biographical work.

In this music, I reflected on death as such and about the time I was a child and my mother guarded and nurtured me. The music is stripped of any complication and effort to be ‘a well-constructed work of art’; it is a pure expression of personal feeling.

The music consists of two musical gestures: a – mostly monophonic – line in long, nonmeasured tones and mild-harmonic music in a rocking rhythm. The non-measured music is my idea of the now liberated spirit in the newly acquired eternity. The rhythmic music is my remembrance of the soft-singing voice of my mother as she soothed me if I hurt myself, fallen ill, or couldn’t sleep. The low-middle register of
the music is the image of her very soft, subdued voice. The rocking rhythm, with some subtle irregularities, is my remembrance of how she improvised her music and sometimes broke the music to catch her breath. It could be interpreted as an evocation of her highly individual type of ‘cradle song’. I hope this very personal music is of importance for listeners and players alike. Hans van Eck, 2021

Hans van Eck has created three different versions:  Soprano doubling alto saxophone with either Accordion, Organ or Percussion