Here are some pieces of classical music and classical stylecopies I composed over the years. See also my fake Soundcloud attributed to The Eckmann Family!
Generations of one composer family that never existed ;-)
https://soundcloud.com/search?q=eckmann

Classical Music and Classical Stylecopies I Composed (see also The Eckmann Family!)

Orchestral Music I Composed (Classical, Soundtracks, Hybrid Styles and Whatever Popped Up)

In this playlist I try to keep record of all stuff I'm sharing on my FUGITEMPUS-soundcloud. A lot of it can be found on Youtube and Spotify as well.

ALL of FUGITEMPUS

In this modest menuet I salute Beethoven, having been born 250 years ago now, and all he did for the world and for me personally. 
i ofcourse used a fortepiano. Enjoy.

(Stylecopy by Sipke Hoekstra, also known as 'The Eckmann Family' and Fugitempus. Early Beethoven Period imitation.)

Minuet for Ludwig van Beethoven

Birthday Minuet for Ludwig van Beethoven

What would Friedrich Burgmüller have been up to during lock down? 
He would probably have written something like this.
Used the magnificent UVI Fortepiano, included in UVI Orchestral Suite. Notated in Finale, but reshaped the MIDI in Cubase, mixing mastering with Waves, Izotope and Fabfilter.

Burgmülleriana

An assignment I made for Berklee College of Music, scoring for 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and a tuba

This piece is built on a simple yet practical theme by Ben Newhouse, using Spitfire BBC SO Brass and plugins by Waves, Fabfilter and Izotope.

In this piece I'm test driving Spitfire's BBC Symphony Orchestra and exploring lots of the possibilities offered. Techniques employed: legato, long, marcato, staccato, staccatissimo, cuivre, trills, sforzandi, a.o.. 

Rather impressed by the sounds and possibilities. Would have liked to have more options to adjust the envelope of a sample, the attack of it for instance. A great job by Spitfire nevertheless.

See the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05rvPDg9iYs&t=2s

Fanfare For The Common Brass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB6SrcFqFNk

In this film, I re-arranged and edited several short video fragments made and shared (cheers for that!) by Cottonbro. In how I arranged all the fragments, the film corresponds loosely to the structure of the canon. 

This three-part 'grounded' canon actually started out as an assignment I made for Berklee College of Music: make a string arrangement on four chords. I decided to make a 3 part canon above a 'ground', in a baroque manner. Be it not strict though - but rather with a contemporary and soundtrack-ish feel. Kitschy? Perhaps - I'd prefer 'Baroque 2.0'. 

Enjoy!

I used the authentic Miroire lib by Orchestral Tools and added the very nice Viola da Gamba lib by Cinesamples. Mixing and mastering plugins by Waves, Izotope and Fabfilter.

Canon A 3 'Common Ground' | modern baroque for film

In this Berklee assignment I had to re-orchestrate a theme from Mahler's Third Symphony. It's short, but had a lot of fun in the process. 

It always struck me that the theme was so much like Brahms' main theme from the Finale of his Fourth, so I put some Brahms DNA in the beginning as well. He deserves it. 

Used BBC Symphony Orchestra by Spitfire, making a mockup after having composed and notated in Finale notation software.

Theme from The Third Reinvented | Rescoring Mahler using Brahms DNA

Talking Music
	
 	The construction
 	This prelude draws from a technique similar to twelve-tone technique- but only to a certain degree. Whereas dodecaphony rises all chromatic tones to equality, I chose to leave distinct tonal markers in the genome of this piece, in order for it to remain communicating. The choice of material helped. The single 16-note progression upon which material is based, was derived from the already rather chromatic dux of a baroque (so utterly tonal) fugue I wrote around the year 2000. This tonal dux fitted the purpose of a rather strict use in bending, tossing around and transposing utterly smoothly, because of the chromatic aspects of it and almost complete use of a chromatic scale. Retrograde motion, transposition and inversion were used in the context of a traditional formal structure and a free tonal harmonic vocabulary, the balance between tonal and atonal shifting now and then. 
	The piece
	The structural model for Breakdown is the Baroque Prelude.  The principal sequence of notes (called 0) is stated repeatedly, be it at first in ‘cells’ of four sixteenth notes, in a fluid rain of notes. Then the theme appears more or less complete and is repeated in various ways, increasingly interrupted by fragments of itself. Towards the end all material is disintegrating to continuously shrinking fragments that are mixed unrecognizably, deteriorating to a musical void. The piece ends with a sudden and short moment of relived brightness.  
On (a)tonality
	Hopefully this modest addition to the still ever-growing symphonic repertory may contribute to the definitive defeat of the convulsive (and still rather powerful) modernistic view, in which all things should be new for the sake of being new. What wrong lies in the synthesis of something Old and something New? Why completely abandon principals that already proved their merits, purely for the sake of abandoning? And why trying to reach musical goals by solely using dissonances? Or complex systems that possess hardly any communitive properties? Just like light exists only exists because darkness does, consonance and dissonance are the Ying and Yang in music. They are in fact the Ferdinand and Isabella that make our musical realm complete.
	I refuse to understand why music without consonances should be more worthwhile to create, perform or listen to than music predominantly consonant. I think it is out of sheer intellectual elitism that we’ve presumed otherwise for so long. It is time we dare admit that the Emperor is, in fact, naked.
	So, in this aphoristic  musical statement, I have sought to combine tonal and atonal principals, and to bring together old and new forms. In harmony.   

Breakdown is the result of my final assignment for a Berklee Orchestration class in 2022.

Breakdown

Breakdown, a prelude for orchestra, by Sipke Hoekstra (=Fugitempus)

Here's three takes on eight simple chords, combined into one build-up for full orchestra, culminating in a grand orchestral tutti. The sec eight chord sequence is presumably by Berklee's Ben Newhouse, all the thematic and motivic material, including the orchestration, is mine.

Used BBC Symphony Orchestra Pro and mainly Waves plugins.

Eight Chords. Three Takes. One Orchestra.

In this track I used four chords and repeated them twice. Added a short coda. The first take is Shostakovich-ly grim. Winds help change the mood in the second take, after which the third take, with a Holst-like approach, brings hope of a reunion. 

Made in Finale, bounced in Cubase Pro with Spitfire BBC SO, East West SO and UVI OS. Honestly, neither of them performed a realistic legato attack in the pianissimo sections. Only combined they sound rather ok. I later replaced this one with a new version, in which I use mainly Spitfire Appasionata Legato Strings and let the others play just second violin :-) 

Plugins by Waves and Izotope mainly.

Farewell | for orchestra

This Pavana originates from a piano suite I wrote in 2009.. The entire suite was composed using a technique similar to twelve-tone technique- but without the atonal bit ;-)

Retrograde motion, inversion, transposition, augmentation and diminution were used in the context of a traditional formal structure and a free tonal harmonic vocabulary, the balance between (poly)tonal and atonal shifting now and then. 

	Inspiration the for Pavana and its primary rhythm  is the Renaissance dance of that name. So working on the Pavana inevitably evoked images of a late 16th century court. This gave me the idea to make the Pavana a kind of tableau vivant, with every variation or version of the theme portraying one or more courtiers. In fact very much like a Lego-set with minifigures, every figure taking its place and role in a miniature story. The story? About a dancing master who desperately tries to teach the courtiers (the old first minister, the astrologer, the jester, murmuring bishops, a bunch of knights joking around, a light-footed princess, heralds – you name it) the Pavana, before the King enters. Will he succeed? It’s all in the score!

PAVANA - a Dance in Miniatures for Orchestra

After having completed the reasonably violent project 'Lindisfarne 793 AD' (to be found here as well), about the first recorded Viking raid, I felt the need to use the theme in a totally different setting. One of reconciliation and hope, both so much more needed in the grim times we're in right now. 

Watch the movie I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT1MCtvwb-s

Perhaps I will be orchestrating this one in the near future!

I once again used that terrific piano VST: Alicia's Keys, by Native Instruments. A piano VST allready well-dyed-in-the-wool but still very current in terms of warmth, clarity and technical approach. I've been using it for years and will probably continue to do so for many years to come.  

Set up: Alicia Keys' (virtual) Yamaha, by Native instruments! Plugins by Waves (delay, reverb+predelay, compression), Fabfilter (compression) and Izotope (EQ and limiter). 

native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/alicias-keys/

"The instrument samples come from Alicia Keys' very own Yamaha­™ C3 Neo grand piano. This unique and highly-sought after instrument was built to celebrate Yamaha's 100th anniversary in 2002 and represents the very top of the Conservatory Collection line. [...]

ALICIA'S KEYS was sampled from her own playing, recorded in the artist's own studio under the supervision of her trusted engineer, Ann Mincieli."

LINDISFARNE EPILOGUE | Perspectives on Alicia's Keys part 2

‘Fair Wells’ is actually one of my first ever DAW-productions, dating from 2018, when I was making my first, unsecure steps from notated music to improvised music and DAW. 

Here I let Alicia’s Keys (that wonderful piano vst plugin based on Alicia Keys’ favorite Yamaha grand piano) team up with a small chamber orchestra, containing no more than a solo soprano sax (Garritan Jazzband 3), accompanied by French Horn and Bassoon (both East West SO), low strings (East West SO + Spitfire Appassionata strings). 

At the core of this short atmospheric piece lies a live improvisation. The rest was added later on. Plugins are mainly by Waves, Izotope and Audiaire.


native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/alicias-keys/

"The instrument samples come from Alicia Keys' very own Yamaha­™ C3 Neo grand piano. This unique and highly-sought after instrument was built to celebrate Yamaha's 100th anniversary in 2002 and represents the very top of the Conservatory Collection line. [...]

ALICIA'S KEYS was sampled from her own playing, recorded in the artist's own studio under the supervision of her trusted engineer, Ann Mincieli."

Fair Wells | perspectives on Alicia's Keys part 3 (with small orchestra)

Have a look at the movie I made right here: https://youtu.be/2PX2vRqY3RE

In 2020 my mother, Hinke Veenstra, published her second book of Frisian poems, called ‘Heit en ik’, meaning as much as ‘Dad and I’. In this book she combines poems by her father, my grandfather, the Frisian poet Sipke Veenstra, with poems of her own that deal with similar topics. 

This particular poem, ‘Wiete klinkers’ (‘Wet paving stones’) struck me because of its nostalgic beauty, its atmospheric qualities and rich metaphors. I decided to make a project out of it and surprise her with it! 

Beneath you’ll find the original poem in Frisian, the language that is closest of all languages to the English language, accompanied by my English translation. Enjoy. 

(I used Alicia’s Keys terrific piano VST, along with orchestral VST’s by East West and Spitfire (BBC SO.) For mixing and mastering I used plugins by Waves, Izotope and Fabfilter)

wiete klinkers                    wet paving stones

boartsjend yn ‘e sinne`           playing in the sun
of op wiete klinkers            or on wet paving stones
ferklaaipartijen, beltsjedrukke               dressing up, playing ring-and-run
krythinkelje, iepen knibbels,          hopscotch, sore knees
út ‘e bocht fleane op roltsjeredens  out of control on roller skates
in tút fan mem, safolle mear as   mum’s kiss, so much more than 
pleisterplakke             sticking band-aid

naïveteit as gids liet de sinne sakje  naivety as guide lowered the sun
ûnwaar as ûnheil yn ‘e sinne          thunder as doom afar
rinne, efteromsjen                    walking, looking back
de bui foarbliuwe wolle                   wanting to stay ahead

yn ‘e klauwen fan in tongerbui  in thunder’s claws
dy’t tichteby ynsloech           striking nearby
himelfjoer dat it sicht ûntnaam   heaven’s fire blocking view

ôfhinklik en oerlevere oan in rezjym dependent, subjected to a regime
mei in Babylonyske tongfal           with Babylonian accent
monologen om oerein te bliuwen  monologues to remain standing 

yn ‘e spelonken fan it brein           in the caves of the brain
waard in rekwiëm skreaun           a requiem was written
de noaten kopswier hingjend  the notes heavy-headed
oan the balken, net wittend hokker  on the staves, not knowing which
partij se kieze moatte            side to choose 
de toansoart fersille            the key bemused

in iepen slot…             an open ending…

Hinke Veenstra
(Translation from Frisian by Fugitempus (=Sipke Hoekstra))

Wet Paving Stones ('Wiete Klinkers', a Frisian Poem)

Commissioned work (2014) that helped the Frysk Jeugd Orkest win the National Competition for Youth Orchestra's in 2015, in De Doelen in Rotterdam. 

During the period that I was roughly sketching the outlines of what would eventually become the symphonic poem ‘Saga’, I was deeply moved by some anonymous Second World War graves I ran across during a random visit to a random graveyard. The men who had been buried there, died for the freedom of other people, having willingly taken that risk. 

They lay there without their names, without their identities. It made me realize very, very clearly that hero´s mainly are hero´s, not by nature or ambition, but by context and necessity. Is this the most tragic and therefore, perhaps, the most pure kind of heroism? 

This all inspired me in structuring the piece loosely in parallel with what well could have been a hero’s life: birth (Intro), youth (A + B), battle, (C) returning home (D), building up for and fighting the last battle (E) death (F), mourning (G) and the memory of the hero being honoured proudly for a while (H)) before that as well slips out of the collective remembrance.

By creating the poem in this specific way, I wanted ‘Saga’ to be a tribute to all persons, female and male, now forgotten, who helped change the world towards being a better place.

Performed by Frysk Jeugd Orkest, conducted by Theo Brouwer.
Fugitempus = Sipke Hoekstra

Saga | Soundtrack To The Life of a Forgotten Hero [live by the FJO]

Have a look at the movie I made right here: https://youtu.be/2PX2vRqY3RE (Read in Frisian, not UK English)

In 2020 my mother, Hinke Veenstra, published her second book of Frisian poems, called ‘Heit en ik’, meaning as much as ‘Dad and I’. In this book she combines poems by her father, my grandfather, the Frisian poet Sipke Veenstra, with poems of her own that deal with similar topics. 

This particular poem, ‘Wiete klinkers’ (‘Wet paving stones’) struck me because of its nostalgic beauty, its atmospheric qualities and rich metaphors. I decided to make a project out of it and surprise her with it! 

Beneath you’ll find the original poem in Frisian, the language that is closest of all languages to the English language, accompanied by my English translation. Enjoy. 

(I used Alicia’s Keys terrific piano VST, along with orchestral VST’s by East West and Spitfire (BBC SO.) For mixing and mastering I used plugins by Waves, Izotope and Fabfilter)

wiete klinkers                    wet paving stones

boartsjend yn ‘e sinne`           playing in the sun
of op wiete klinkers            or on wet paving stones
ferklaaipartijen, beltsjedrukke               dressing up, playing ring-and-run
krythinkelje, iepen knibbels,          hopscotch, sore knees
út ‘e bocht fleane op roltsjeredens  out of control on roller skates
in tút fan mem, safolle mear as   mum’s kiss, so much more than 
pleisterplakke             sticking band-aid

naïveteit as gids liet de sinne sakje  naivety as guide lowered the sun
ûnwaar as ûnheil yn ‘e sinne          thunder as doom afar
rinne, efteromsjen                    walking, looking back
de bui foarbliuwe wolle                   wanting to stay ahead

yn ‘e klauwen fan in tongerbui  in thunder’s claws
dy’t tichteby ynsloech           striking nearby
himelfjoer dat it sicht ûntnaam   heaven’s fire blocking view

ôfhinklik en oerlevere oan in rezjym dependent, subjected to a regime
mei in Babylonyske tongfal           with Babylonian accent
monologen om oerein te bliuwen  monologues to remain standing 

yn ‘e spelonken fan it brein           in the caves of the brain
waard in rekwiëm skreaun           a requiem was written
de noaten kopswier hingjend  the notes heavy-headed
oan the balken, net wittend hokker  on the staves, not knowing which
partij se kieze moatte            side to choose 
de toansoart fersille            the key bemused

in iepen slot…             an open ending…

Hinke Veenstra
(Translation from Frisian by Fugitempus (=Sipke Hoekstra))

Wet Paving Stones ('Wiete Klinkers', a Frisian Poem) UK ENG version

The Frysk Jeugd Orkest won the First Prize of the National Competition of Youth Orchestra's of the Netherlands 2015, partly by performing my symphonic poem 'Saga.' 'Saga' was commissioned by the orchestra in 2013. 
The work is published  by Highland Music in Amsterdam in 2014. 

Saga | soundtrack to the life of a forgotten hero [Live performance in De Doelen in Rotterdam]

Fugitempus = Sipke Hoekstra = Eckmann
Composer/orchestrator/arranger/producer of whatever music or sounds I like 
(classical stuff published by Donemus and released on Spotify)