The Road

For one year, filmmaker Frank Scheffer, specialist in music documentaries, followed composer Louis Andriessen during the composition of his piece Tao. Andriessen used the texts of the Tao-te Ching as a basis. It is one of the oldest recovered texts from the history of Chinese philosophy. These esoteric writings were framed in random order, making it a challenge for a composer to give them coherence. To do this, Andriessen enlisted the help of a Sinologist, who comments on the texts. ‘The greatest power is weakness‘ and ‘he who covets life will lose it‘ are two of the many paradoxes included in the Tao-te Ching. Andriessen also called in the assistance of the Japanese musician Mukaiyama Tomoko, who at the composer‘s request plays her koto with a hammer. Gradually, from Andriessen‘s vision a sophisticated composition originates, which was performed by the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra in 1996. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)