The final movement (In Paradisum) is typical, beginning with rarefied, enchanting recorder sounds. Two minutes later there is an emotional outburst on Jerusalem. Jeths quotes here almost literally from Mahler's Second Symphony, and twice. Listeners at the Saturday Matinee (2017) must have recognized it. These are well known notes that Mahler himself conducted in 1904 in the Great Hall of the
… Concertgebouw. So isn't such a quotation an admission of weakness? Would it not have been better for Jeths to make something up at such a crucial moment? Jeths does not consider himself a 'quote composer'. He prefers to speak of 'archetypal references', as if he were drawing from a collective unconscious. And where are archetypal references more appropriate than in reflections on death. Death remains an important reference point for me, although my view of it has changed. Fear and panic are starting to make way for resignation. According to Jeths in an interview with Joep Christenhusz (Achter de noten). (HJ)more
