The Dutch ex-punk and Jim Jarmusch bandmate talks about his passion to free up a hidebound repertoire and make its strings ‘a real pop instrument’
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obody can accuse Jozef Van Wissem of doing things by halves. The musician, very likely the world’s most notorious contemporary lutenist, owns a sonic arsenal of eight of the string instruments: some bespoke, and all boasting remarkable features. With them he has created a huge body of work, nearly 50 titles to date. Another album, This Is My Blood is released this May.
Each Easter, Van Wissem settles down to compose a new record. He finds the peace of Warsaw, where everyone has “gone away for the holidays”, more amenable for work than “noisy” Rotterdam, where he also has a flat.
While composing, Van Wissem hears a traditional theme or a melody, and “repeats” it. “It’s stealing, I admit it,” he says. Repeating may be “stealing”, but it is certainly not copying. For one thing, the classical lute repertoire is vast: formed by years of constant travel and re-notation. It is, according to Van Wissem, open to constant interpretation; especially when you consider the lute’s many tunings. His black 14-course theorbo, for instance, (which has “sacrilegious” inbuilt mics and a foldable neck) has reentrant tuning, where at least one string is tuned to a pitch that breaks the otherwise ascending or descending sequence.
