'It strikes me that for whole groups of people music is like a last straw. Faith has failed them, love has failed them, there is hardly any hope and we don't talk about politics at all anymore. Music is the last point of reference ', says composer Hans Kox in an interview with Bas van Putten (Vrij Nederland, 1995). According to the same interview, Hans Kox wants to convey anything but a message,
… even though much of his work actually makes a very committed impression. Rather, Kox is concerned with what he calls the 'critical mass': the ability of music to pass on human dignity as a bottle of mail to an indifferent world. The title of the CD - Memories and Reflections - refers to the piano quintet of the same name that Hans Kox wrote in 2002 for violinist Christian Bor. The also recorded Twelve Monographs - a kind of suite after the melodramatic The Stranger - is one of the many works that Hans Kox wrote for the American saxophonist John-Edward Kelly. (HJ)more
