The Book of Disquiet

“Remarkable 75-minute conflation of avant-garde music, film and theatre by the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa. With Samuel West in terrific form as the pathologically solitary poet […] The monkish absence of self-esteem is startling and complemented on screen by image after image of Pessoa’s heteronyms frenetically folding sheets of paper filled with his scribbling and consigning them to a wooden chest or (later) flames. That manic intensity beneath a seemingly static surface is wonderfully captured in Van der Aa’s score, which has bouts of violent, jagged-rhythmed writing following by luscious, saccharine passages of calm. Sadly, only two performances. The Book of Disquiet deserves to be booked for a disquieting reprise.”
— ★★★★★ The Times, Richard Morrison, 25-02-2016

Magically, it all coheres: the parade of visuals, beautifully shot under Van der Aa’s direction; the musing disconnectedness of Brandauer’s utterances, which create the texture of a dream. If it’s in the nature of Pessoa’s book that there can be no resolution, there is a kind of closure here, a sense of knowing much more about the author and his alter ego than we ever would otherwise.
— The Guardian, Andrew Clements

Arid and stark: summer in Portugal. One glance at the dusty earth under the feet of an ox and you’re in the world of Pessoa. Hey, a pair of women’s legs suddenly come into view behind those of the ox; their gait is neatly synchonized. This image went unnoticed at the premiere of Michel Van der Aa’s music theatre piece Der Buch der Unruhe in Linz (Austria) in January, but at the Amsterdam premiere the full Concertgebouw laughed heartily. There were other differences too.
The international success of composer Van der Aa (39) lies not only in the quality of his music (although publisher Boosey & Hawkes of course was also well taken by the notes), but also in his mission to explore new paths in music and music theatre with the help of a variety of media.
Actor Brandauer appeared to be more at home with the text this time around; his performance was looser, more compelling. Dutch surtitles helped the audience to appreciate not only the tragic side of Soares’s manic isololation, but the humor of the situation as well. His monologue about the deceptiveness of feelings was impressive in the way his musings were continually absorbed by the sound waves of the ensemble. Melodramatic – in its literal sense. The ensemble MusikFabrik, led by Martyn Brabbins, executed Van der Aa’s challenging score, with its restless figures and wispy, questioning strings more colourfully than at the premiere.
Das Buch der Unruhe rouses the intellect as well as the emotions through the mix of text, music and film. Van der Aa’s next piece is to be a cello concerto, but hopefully he will turn back to music theatre soon. His paths bring us to the kind of places we have not yet visited, but would like to see more often. Just like Soares.
— ★★★★★ NRC, Mischa Spel, 12 October 2009

The world premiere of The Book of Disquiet made a profound impression. The composer and director Michel van der Aa wove together text excerpts, film sequences and music into an impressive, symbolically-laden production… Brilliant in its multi-layered symbolism, Marc Warning’s stage set has the effect of a single, great metaphor for the main character’s attitude towards life, at odds with himself. Five circles which push into each other, then again drift apart, recall the planets of a universe, in the midst of which Soares circles around his existence… In van der Aa’s compositions, disquiet becomes music.
— Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, Karin Schütze

The well thought-out music theatre interpretation by the Dutch director and composer Michel van der Aa concentrated the material into an oppressive picture of a man who questions everything in life, but cannot do anything other than to create… Van der Aa’s music translates Soares’ ideas, his depressive thought spirals and visions into a convincing language full of harmonic frictions and dramatic compressions.
— Kurier, Michael Huber

Dream flashes set to intelligent music.
Following the Japanese cineast Kore-Eda, whose film ‘After Life’ formed the inspiration for Michel Van der Aa’s multimedia piece of the same name (and until last week ran at De Nederlandse Opera), the Portuguese author Pessoa emerged last Saturday in a sold-out Concertgebouw as the invisible genius behind another, no less brilliant piece of handiwork by Van der Aa: Das Buch der Unruhe.
The true quality of Van der Aa’s work lies in the way in which images, electronic sound, live music and langauge interact. He has arranged thought flashes in a way that resembles Krapp’s Last Tape by Beckett, in which a lonely old man muses on his useless existence.
The music does not force itself onto the piece; it adjusts itself to the images and text. Here intentionally wooden, there agitated, at times mellifluous – but always intelligently calculated. The moment of a mild trumpet entrance essentially alters the sound colour.
— ★★★★★ Volkskrant, Roland de Beer, 12 October 2009

Zum Erfolg geriet Michel van der Aas Buch der Unruhe mit Klaus Maria Brandauer und dem Bruckner Orchester Linz in der neu errichteten Linzer Hafenhalle09. Ein symbolträchtiges wie ausdrucksstarkes Projekt, für welches der niederländische Komponist und Regisseur Texte aus Fernando Pessoas gleichnamigem Werk, Filmsequenzen und Musik eindrucksvoll miteinander verwoben hat. Dirigent Dennis Russell Davies und Musiker des Linzer Bruckner Orchesters verwandelten van der Aas von Streicherklängen geprägte Komposition in einen spannungsgeladenen, präzise wie zart geknüpften Klangteppich. Aussagekräftig wie originell in seiner Multifunktionalität erwies sich Marc Warnings Bühnenbild aus fünf verschiebbaren Kreisen, die ein eigenes, in sich geschlossenes Universum für einen um sich Kreisenden zu bilden schienen und dabei als Projektionsfläche für Filmsequenzen ebenso dienten wie als originelles Percussion-Element. Eine beeindruckende Inszenierung, die in sich stimmig zu packen vermochte.
— Österreichische Musikzeitung

“One of the most beguiling of Michel van der Aa’s multimedia theatre pieces […] wonderfully accomplished dramatic reworking […] spoken in English by Samuel West, who makes a more engaging and engaged protagonist than Brandauer. […] Van der Aa’s music, played by the Sinfonietta under Joana Carneiro is string-dominated, by no means the most important element in the dramatic mix; it’s just one ingredient in a beautifully crafted package.”
— ★★★★ The Guardian, Andrew Clements, 25-02-2016