The Miraculous World of Hieronymus Bosch

Hendriks, Mark

About the work

Jeroen Bosch is certainly one of the most unique painters in the history of art. While his contemporary Leonardo da Vinci recaptured the beauty of Greek and Roman art, Bosch created a whole never seen before (Medieval) fantasy world of his own at the same time. A style imitated and copied by others many times after that.  Even today, after 500 years, his paintings evoke all kind of emotions and reactions from museum visitors to all kinds of artists, including myself.

These mysterious and miraculous paintings by Bosch (even his own life is a mystery) inspired me to set this strange world to music. Several motifs, rhythms and moods combined represent the different paintings with their own themes in one musical piece. Fun to play, surprisingly to listen. The composition is based on the octatonic scale, creating a strange kind of tonality. Two intervals dominate throughout the piece: the third and the augmented fourth (tritone). Or to stay in Bosch’s Medieval terms, the divine number three (the Father, Son and Holy Ghost), and the devil himself (Diabolus in Musica). Further more the composition is built out of blocks (rehearsal letters). You could change the order or delete or repeat a segment.

The piece won 3rd prize and audience award at the CoMA Maastricht composition competition in 2022.

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