Ton Bruynel - Dust (versions Vught, Haarlem and Utrecht)

In the late '70s, I studied electronic music as a side subject with Ton Bruynel at Utrechts Conservatorium. Among my fellow students were René Uijlenhoet (who is now a professor of electronic music at Rotterdam Conservatoire), Ad Wammes, Rob Nasveld and Carlos Michans. In those days, one still had to cut and paste literally, i.e. cutting a tape with a razor blade or a special device and put it where needed. I was not particularly good at it, but appreciated Ton Bruynel's lessons very much and learnt a lot from him regarding the overall importance of quality of sound. He could spend a whole week on getting the best sound for a fragment which lasted only a few seconds. Ton liked the organ, as a synthesizer avant la lettre. At highschool, I had already heard some of his music through Ton Hartsuiker's outstanding radio program Musica Nova (at the time my brother, a friend of his and I also used to listen to Stockhausen's Kontakte, Telemusik, Mikrophonie I and II, Aus den sieben Tagen and a lot of other contemporary music). During my studies, I played Relief and Arc, his early works for organ and soundtracks, and remember Ton being very enthusiastic about organ works by Messiaen and Reger. Around 1990, I visited him in Pedraza de la Sierra, where he got the idea to write Dust, inspired by a small 18th century organ. After he finished the piece in 1992, we recorded the organ part in the Hervormde Kerk in Vught.  He mixed this with the soundtracks in his studio (by then he had moved to Wapse in Holland, where I advised him about the organ part in the score) and issued this on his CD Looking Ears I. This "authentic" version sounds as follows:

Another "authentic" version is a live recording (made by Jos van der Linden) with the composer authorizing the balance between the organ and the soundtracks, made in the Grote Kerk in Haarlem on 29 June 1993.

Finally, a recording (also made by Jos van der Linden) of a performance at a Ton Bruynel festival in the Nicolaaskerk in Utrecht on 15 May 2008. This time, Rene Uijlenhoet supervised the balance between the organ and the soundtracks.

Comparing the three versions now, I prefer both the Vught and the Utrecht versions. The former because of its clarity and detailed expression, the latter because of its ambiance, in which the organ and the electronic part combine very well, while the space remains bright and clear (the Haarlem version sounds a bit hollow).