Dutch pianist Joep Beving makes intimate and approachable contemporary classical music. However, his music’s accessibility belies the philosophical framework that underlies his two album releases. Beving sees philosophical power in music and is driven by its potential to influence thought and change ways of developing meaning.
“Music is vibration, it’s frequency and we are made of frequency, we are made of vibrating things,” he says. “It’s only logical that when in contact with music things start to change, because there’s an interaction of these frequencies.”
Beving became a surprise success story with the online release of his 2015 LP, Solipsism. The album was recorded at night in his Amsterdam kitchen after his partner and two daughters had gone to bed. But while the record went on to find a global audience of millions, his founding intentions were rather insular.
“Sitting behind the piano was a bit of therapy to rediscover things that would make me feel connected to what I am, which is a human being,” he says. “If everything that you’re accustomed to as things that keep you sane and stable starts to crumble – I’m talking about the news and social media and the way that we are bombarded with all sorts of information – it’s really difficult to make sense of all of those things. If you see something which is simple – things that are essential and hold you grounded – I tried to find that within myself through music.”
Since finding a receptive audience, Beving has often referred to the notion of an “absolute aesthetic”. By virtue of his intimate compositions, he endeavours to illustrate how certain sounds can appeal to something innate in all of us.
“First of all I had to find this spot within myself and I thought, ‘How can I make something which has appeal or will help me get there?’” he says. “And I was looking at philosophy and going, ‘OK what are universal truths? Which is truth, which is beauty?’ These values are quite universal and you could ask whether they’re built within our structure, whether they are in the architecture of life or not.
“I was asking, ‘Is this reaction something I have been culturally trained to react to or is it something that is innate?’ And if the latter would be the case, I could try and make something beautiful, which hopefully would resonate with a lot of people since I’m human just like any other.”
Beving released his second album, Prehension, in April this year. Prehension is a philosophical idea concerning the perception of an object or occurrence, but not necessarily cognition. It refers to how something moves us in the moment of interaction before we’ve been able to mentally categorise it alongside other recognisable things or experiences. This idea closely ties in with the evolution in Beving’s artistry.
“Simply put, prehension is the next step after solipsism,” he says. “Where solipsism is the individual trying to grasp reality – get out of your own skull and see whether reality is only in your own mind or whether we all share this thing – prehension is going from the one to the group and basically the relationship between the group and reality. In our actions we are, in effect, part of shaping the course of reality.
“I thought that was an interesting way of looking at people and reality: coming from just your own head and how you deal with the outside to how we as a group [relate to reality]. This will lead up to, hopefully, my third album which allows me to zoom out a bit more.”
Reassuringly, no academic knowledge is necessary to enjoy Beving’s compositions, which will fill the Recital Centre’s Elisabeth Murdoch Hall this weekend. Beving’s ongoing artistic and conceptual expansion mirrors his growing international following, but he has tried to avoid the influence of commercial demand.
“The moment that people are starting to expect things, you start incorporating these expectations into the process and that’s very dangerous. I set out this zooming out thing for myself basically to reflect my own development in the discovery of my relationship to reality, and musically to have some form of guidance for myself to make sure I try and sound different for the next album.”
