The music Holland Baroque recorded for the film Metamorphosis will be released as an album by label Pentatone on July 12.
The music accompanies Pim Zwier’s extraordinary documentary (shown at IDFA in 2023), about German artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) and her love of plants and insects. Her study of the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies not only produced beautiful prints and engravings of this process, it was also the foundation of entomology.
The music for Metamorphosis is like the caterpillar in the film: strongly zoomed in and then enlarged. Holland Baroque recorded music played whisper-softly, which was then magnified by the historic acoustics of the Pieterskerk in Utrecht as well as the recording technique. This makes it very fragile and yet powerful: just like the caterpillars and butterflies in the film. Thus the soundtrack follows the caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation, a moment uniquely captured by Pim Zwier. Holland Baroque chose rare 17th-century instruments such as the psalterium, serpent, viola da gamba, baroque harp, viola da gamba and period percussion.
In addition to compositions by Judith Steenbrink, the album includes improvisations and music by Adam Reincken, a Dutch composer and contemporary of Maria Sybilla Merian.
Listen to the album’s single ‘puss moth’ below.