Oboi, Che Melancolia, composed by Klaas de Vries, sits somewhere between an art installation and a performance. Members of the audience are free to take a seat, lie down or walk around and of course to listen. All around them, speakers play sound fragments that could be reminiscent of Bach or Debussy, or something inviting a dance, or shifting chords that slowly dissolve into nothingness. The experience is like walking through a musical museum, where everyone is free to focus on a specific sound object or sit back and surrender to the experience.
At three points in this two-hour ‘concert’, oboist Arthur Klaassens steps in to ‘comment’ on music that was played earlier on. He takes the audience on a journey of discovery through the musical landscape. Among the instruments he plays is the lupophone, the lowest sounding and ultra-rare member of the oboe family. Only 11 have ever been made, of which Arthur owns the last one (and the first one in the Netherlands).