Rudolf Escher

Escher was born the son of the geologist and mineralogist Berend George Escher and the Swiss Emma Brosy. His father was a son of the engineer George Arnold Escher and half-brother of the graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher. At the age of four, Escher moved with his family to Batavia, Dutch East Indies, where his father worked as a geologist for the Batavian Petroleum Company. His father was a good pianist and he gave the young Escher piano lessons.

In 1922, five years later, they were back in the Netherlands, now in Leiden. Escher went to the Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden and continued his piano lessons, now with Bé Hartz. He also played the violin and got harmony lessons. After four years he quit school. At first he could not choose between music, visual arts and letters but in 1929 he decided to become a composer. Next he wanted to go to the conservatoire in Cologne. The Dutch composer Peter van Anrooy advised him to study piano. On second thoughts Escher went to the Toonkunst Conservatoire in Rotterdam in 1931. Until 1937 he studied the piano as major with the cello as minor. From 1934 to 1937 he also studied composition with Willem Pijper as his teacher. Escher's debut was in 1935 with his First piano sonata. He also attracted attention in 1938 with an important essay: Toscanini and Debussy, magic of reality. In this essay his views towards composing are evident. He also wrote a few poems, which were published in Forum.

When the Second World War expanded into the Netherlands, many of Escher's compositions from his study period were destroyed in the bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940. He also lost his house and all his possessions. During the war Escher composed Musique pour l'esprit en deuil (1941–43). This work quickly elevated him to be the most important composer in the Netherlands. About the compositions from the war, he wrote: 'My work from this period has got a sort of gravity, a doggedness here and there, which makes it clearly to realize as grown amid disasters. For me, personally, that is the ethical significance of it: they are constructions of the mind, in a time that 'mind' (if you can still call it that way) is used almost exclusively for destructive purposes.’ Soon after the war Escher was a contributor about visual arts and music for the weekly Groene Amsterdammer. He turned out to be a talented poet, publishing poetry in literary magazines into the 1950s. Socially he had little to complain about; he was offered several administrative functions, his compositions were successfully performed, and his publications were followed with interest. After 1946 Escher befriended the Dutch composer Matthijs Vermeulen. They shared the same social and literary interests and communist ideals. They had enough trust in each other so that they could write critically about the others' compositions. Escher's communist ideals were expressed in his membership of the Communist Party (from 1934 to 1940). He wrote a few critiques for the monthly communist periodical Politics and Culture, using the pseudonym A. Leuvens. During the 1950s he became critical of Russian communism, which he considered a failure. What remained was his leftist political orientation. In 1958 Escher was present at the 32nd ISCM festival in Strasbourg. About this he wrote reviews to his friend and composer-colleague Peter Schat. In 1960 he was present at the ISCM festival in Cologne. Here he got excited about Pli selon pli of Pierre Boulez. Thus Escher began experimenting with electronic music and serialism in the 1960s. He took lessons in the technique of electronic music with lectures in elementary sound mechanics, electro-physics and sound technology in Delft. Afterwards he experimented in the Studio for Electronic Music in Delft and then at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht. He decided to ask for analysis classes with Boulez, with reference to the piece he heard in Cologne. From 3 to 7 November 1960 he visited Boulez in Baden-Baden. Those days were spent on analyzing Improvisations sur Mallarmé I & II of Boulez. At last Escher concluded that the techniques did not feel right for him. Nevertheless, in his Wind Quintet from 1967 serial music can be found. He uses structure formulas that remind a listener of Boulez. His visit led a few weeks later to a purification of his works: He wrote a request to the director of the publisher Donemus to remove four works unconditionally and three with some restrictions. In 1960–61 Escher gave lessons at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam. He used his experience with Boulez to give a lecture on "the meaning of structure and form by Debussy with reference to recent serial composition techniques by Boulez." He became Scientific Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Musicology at the University of Utrecht from 1964 to 1977. His specialization was 'Aspects of the twentieth century'. He gave a lecture "characteristic structure- and form criteria in the music of the twentieth century." Besides music theory he also explored the world of music as a semantic sign system and Audiology.

• 1943 Musique pour l'esprit en deuil • 1948 Concerto for String Orchestra • 1951 Hymne du Grand Meaulnes (to be revised as Chant du Grand Meaulnes) • 1954 Symphony nr. 1 (1953–54) • 1958 Symphony nr. 2 (revised in 1964 en 1971) • 1969 Summer Rites at Noon (1962–1969) to be revised • 1977 Orchestration of Six épigraphes antique (Claude Debussy) (1975–1977)

• 1935 Sonata No. 1 for piano • 1937 Passacaglia for organ • 1943 Sonata concertante for cello and piano • 1944 Sonata for two flutes op.8 • 1944 Arcana suite for piano (formerly Arcana Musae Dona) • 1946 Trio d'anches for oboe, clarinet and bassoon • 1949 Due Voci for piano • 1949 Non Troppo ten easy pieces for piano • 1949 Sonata for flute solo op.16 • 1951 Sonatina for piano • 1952 Le tombeau de Ravel • 1953 Air pour charmer un lézard op.28 for flute solo • 1959 Trio for violin, viola en cello • 1967 Wind Quintet Quintetto a fiati • 1969 Monologue for flute • 1973 Sonata for clarinet solo • 1976 Sinfonia per dieci instrumenti • 1978 Sonata for flute and piano (1975–78) • 1978 Trio for clarinet, viola and piano.

• 1951 Chants du désir (Quatre Poèmes de Louise Labé) for mezzo and piano • 1951 Nostalgies (H.J.M. Levet) for tenor and orchestra (revised in 1961) • 1952 Strange meeting (Wilfred Owen) for bariton and piano • 1953 Le vrai visage de la paix (P. Eluard) for choir a cappella(revised in 1957) • 1955 Songs of Love and Eternity for choir a cappella • 1957 Ciel, air et vents (Trois poèmes de Ronsard) for choir a cappella • 1970 Univers de Rimbaud (Arthur Rimbaud) for tenor and orchestra • 1975 Three Poems by W.H. Auden for choir a cappella

• 1960 Electronic Music for 'The Long Christmas Dinner' (Thornton Wilder)

• Toscanini en Debussy: magie der werkelijkheid (Rotterdam, 1938) • ‘Maurice Ravel’, Groot Nederland (Amsterdam, 1939) • ‘Rudolf Escher: Musique pour l'esprit en deuil’, Sonorum speculum, xx (1964), 15–33 • ‘Rudolf Escher: Quintetto a fiati’, Sonorum speculum, xxxiv (1968), 24–32 • ‘Debussy and the Musical Epigram’, Key Notes, no.10 (1979), 59–63 • Debussy: actueel verleden, ed. D. Hamoen and E. Schönberger (Buren, 1985) • met M.C. Escher: Beweging en metamorfosen: een briefwisseling (Amsterdam, 1985) • E. Voermans, ed.: Brieven, 1958–1961 (Zutphen, 1992) [briefwisseling tussen Escher en P. Schat]