The great Dutch conductor, composer, and pianist died today at the age of eighty-one. His contributions to the promotion of new and unsung music were vast: Andriessen, Ustvolskaya, Kurtág, Ligeti, Gubaidulina, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Claude Vivier, Mauricio Kagel, and on and on. His 1994 performance of Messiaen's Des Canyons aux étoiles at Tanglewood remains a touchstone of my listening life. He also had few peers as an exponent of the music of Erik Satie. He will be remembered long after most of today's celebrity conductors are forgotten: he mattered far more to the music of our time.
