Daan Manneke has a magical talent for coaxing the most stunning sounds out of the organ. Most of these works strive for grandeur and place extreme demands on the performer. The title translates to blow or breathe but also to inspire . The wavelike movements are also typical of his music. One can trace this penchant to the numerous works in which the recorder plays an important role, including Archipel I and Ordre.
Visual experience goes hand in hand with auditive experience, a total occupation of the space.
Manneke is a consciously democratic composer, not one who preaches from atop an ivory tower. Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit, si bleu, si calme . Kruiningen, Manneke s Combray, enlarged to mythical proportions and projected on the life of man. All of this is precise and controlled, but with sensitivity and directness, notated in a strict but never overbearingly present form. All his works show an enormous spirituality, and the ability to be creative and unpredictable even within a strictly conceptual framework.