The music of composer Hans Kox (* 1930) was for a long time dismissed as too old-fashioned. Gradually there is more and more appreciation for the high level of Kox's compositions. "Several of his works are head and shoulders above the gray average of Dutch music," said Leo Samama in his Seventy Years of Dutch Music 1915-1985. What Kox was looking for in tradition, he himself described as the 'critical
… mass', after a term coined by George Steiner. “I would describe the critical mass in music as an inward-looking force in the music itself, which has the core ability to shock people to their innermost being. It is the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Britten, Shostakovich and many other composers ", says Hans Kox (source: Donemus). Emergo released a CD with orchestral suites by Kox, played by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Porcelijn. These are the orchestral suite from the opera "Das grüne Gesicht", the "Dorian Gray suite", the "Ballet suite Spleen" and "Six once-act plays for twenty-nine musicians". This CD received a 9 in Listen (January 2001). (HJ) _more
