Van San, Herman

Herman Van San was a composer, pianist, theorist and radical thinker on new music. He studied music theory and piano at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, while also immersing himself in philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, zoology and psychology. These wide-ranging scientific interests were devoted entirely to his pursuit of a formalised, mathematical basis for music.

In the early 1950s, Van San composed rigorously serial works in which not only pitch but also rhythm, timbre, dynamics and spatial arrangement were organised according to structural principles. Works such as Sextet, Microstructuren and, above all, Sectionen/Sneden reflect his search for a music in which all parameters are governed by a single mathematical logic. He developed his ideas on electronic music in studios in Cologne, Gravesano, Brussels and Ghent, through exchanges with figures including Gottfried Michael Koenig, Hermann Scherchen, Iannis Xenakis and Herman Sabbe.

Many of his plans were technologically ahead of their time. His mathematically conceived electronic projects could scarcely be realised with the analogue equipment then available. As a result, Van San long remained a largely unrecognised pioneer of serial and electronic music, whose ideas also anticipated computer music.