She always has her own seat on the plane. Fasten your belts, of course. And then hope it doesn’t get too cold or damp in the flight case. But a greater danger to the lute than climate, says Jozef van Wissem, who never leaves her side on her many journeys, are early music traditionalists.
Van Wissem’s lute playing sounds in computer games (The Sims) and on albums on which he composes minimalistically and borrows from the metal idiom. But he also made music for the unveiling of Caravaggio’s ‘The Lute Player’ (1596) at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and composed for Hans Holbein’s ‘The Ambassadors’ (1533) for The National Gallery in London. He wants to update the lute, but not without delving deep into history. “I like it when you’re not sure if it’s old or new.”
‘Ex Mortis‘ it reads on the wide neck of the black instrument. From the dead. According to him, it refers to the second life of the baroque instrument that seemed to have disappeared for two centuries, but also to the painting theme vanitas, where the lute often stands next to a skull. “A reminder of the emptiness of existence.”
Together with Jim Jarmusch, the American art-house filmmaker with whom he is friends, he has the habit of giving instruments girls names. Morty they call her. Three years ago, he had her copied from seventeenth-century paintings by Johannes Vermeer and Gerard ter Borch, among others. It is a Dutch model, with four pairs of floating bass strings in addition to the neck. In total it has 24 strings.
She forces his big hands to compose in D minor. That’s how she was voted. It also suits him, that dark. With long hair, black lines around the eyes and black clothes, Van Wissem is popular metal heads. He saw in a dream that his lute also had to be black, but his lute maker at the time refused. Only after a photo of an old black lute surfaced did he get to work. He also regularly encounters incomprehension among early music fanatics when he de blues bottleneck used to slide over the strings or airfield recordings through his pieces.
His new lute builder Lauri Niskanen has fewer problems with experiments. But for the time being, he too will not dare to comply with Van Wissem’s other wish, to integrate the two microphones that he has now taped into the sound box. It is the most fragile and mysterious part of the ancient instrument. There arise the so-called wolf tones, typical of baroque instruments. With Morty they provide a long reverb. “She’s getting a kind of vocal quality.” When he plays in a church with a long echo, he only needs two repeating chords to bring the audience into a meditative state. He is fascinated by religious surrender, as in the literature of thirteenth-century nuns he studied for his latest album. He recognizes it. At good concerts he sometimes goes beyond himself. Then he sees himself with Morty on his knee, and their joint notes come naturally.
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