21 oktober, 2003 - Het Bethanienklooster, AmsterdamCONCERT XLII
21 oktober, 2003 - Het Bethanienklooster, AmsterdamCONCERT XLII |
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presenteertTristan Murailcomplete piano works performed by Marilyn NonkenProgrammaComme un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe... (1967) Estuaire (1971) Territoires de l'Oubli (1978) Cloches d'adieu et un sourire...(1992) La Mandragore (1993) Les Travaux et les Jours (2003) ToelichtingenOf the pieces, Ms. Nonken writes, Comme un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe... (1967) Recently rediscovered by the composer, Comme un oeil was written by the young Murail as an audition piece, to gain entry into the historic composition class of Olivier Messiaen, whose students included Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis, among others. Its title ("Like an eye, suspended, and polished by a dream...") is taken from a poem written by Murail's father. The work's lush harmonies, quirky rhythms, and sectional, cyclic structures hint at the powerful influence of Messiaen. Yet Murail's unique fascination with the piano's resonance is evident in his use of extreme registers, strictly controlled dynamics, and unusual pedalings. Estuaire (1971) Estuaire ("Estuary") consists of two movements: Pres des rives ("On the banks") and Au Melange des Eaux ("On the mixing of the waters"). Although there is no overt program or narrative, Estuaire is highly evocative. The score is filled with poetic references to crashing waves, the undertow, breaking surf, and even the call of a foghorn. Its sudden, often violent contrasts reflect the beauty and brutality of nature. As in Murail's ensemble work Couleurs de mer ("Colors of the sea"), written in the same period, the emphasis is not on form or process, but nuance and shading. Territoires de l'Oubli (1978) "Nowadays, the piano is usually classified among the percussion instruments, probably because contemporary composers have strongly desired to destroy the powerful romantic and impressionistic image of the instrument," Murail wrote in the forward to this epic work. "Instead of considering the piano as a mere percussion instrument, Territoires de l'Oubli ["Lands of Oblivion"] emphasizes a different idiomatic characteristic of the instrument: a group of strings whose vibration is caused by sympathetic resonance or by a direct action of the hammers. This is why the sustain pedal is depressed from the beginning until the very end of the piece: the work is written for the resonances, and not for the attacks...." Territoires stands as one of the most innovative piano works of the twentieth century, perhaps most for the extraordinary way in which new sound worlds emerge, dissipate, and evolve into one another. Cloches d'adieu et un sourire... (1992) Olivier Messiaen died in 1992, and this work is Murail's tribute to his teacher. The title ("Bells of farewell and a smile") refers to Messiaen's Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu ("Bells of anguish and tears of farewell), a prelude for piano which is quoted in the work's final gesture. La Mandragore (1993) "Under the gallows grows the mandrake. At midnight, when the moon is full, it is picked beneath the hanged man who swings..." The mandrake is a Mediterranean plant used in witchcraft. Its root grows in the shape of a homunculus (a small man), which has led to the belief that it has magical powers. The title of this piece indirectly refers to Le Gibet ("The Gallows") from Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. Although Ravel's music is not literally quoted, La Mandragore shares certain aspects of form, atmosphere, and harmonic color with Le Gibet. Murail has described the music as a spiral, which rotates on aspects of rhythm, color, and timbre; five spectral chords, which recur throughout the work in various manifestations, can be heard as if the turning arms of the spiral. Les Travaux et les Jours (2003) Murail's most recent work, whose title is taken from Hesiod ("Works and Days"), parallels Territoires de l'Oubli in its broad scope. A series of interconnected miniatures, Les Travaux et les Jours shows the composer moving in new directionsãespecially in terms of form and development. Although each movement has its own inner shape and direction, fragments recur and are redeveloped throughout the work. The work also celebrates a pianistic virtuosityãin the shimmering passagework, fleeting gracenote figures, and arpeggiosãabsent from the earlier pieces. Les Travaux et les Jours was commissioned by Marilyn Nonken with funds from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. BiografieanTristan Murail, born in 1947 at Le Havre, France, received degrees in classical and North African Arabic and in economics before turning to composition. A student of Olivier Messiaen, he won the Prix de Rome in 1971 and spent two years at the Villa MÈdicis. Upon his return to Paris in 1973, he founded the ItinÈraire ensemble with a group of young composers and performers; the group became widely renowned for its groundbreaking explorations of the relationship between instrumental performance and electronics. He has also received awards from AcadÈmie FranÁaise and SACEM, and, in 1992, was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque and the Grand Prix du PrÈsident de la RÈpublic, AcadÈmie Charles Cross. Today, Mr. Murail is recognized, along with Gerard Grisey, as a founding figure of the spectral music movement, an aesthetic revolution that refocused the world's attention on harmony in new music and its relation to acoustics, instruments, and perception. In the 1980s, Mr. Murail began using computer technology to further his research into acoustic phenomena. This led him to years of collaboration with the IRCAM (Insitiute de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique), where he directed the composition program from 1991 to 1997 and helped develop the Patchwork composition software. Mr. Murail has taught at numerous schools and festivals worldwide, including the Paris Conservatoire, IRCAM, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse, the Abbaye de Royaumont, and the Toho University in Tokyo. He is currently a professor of composition at Columbia University. His works are published by Salabert and Editions Lemoine and recorded on the Una Corda, AdÈs, and MFA-Radio France labels. Marilyn Nonken performs the complete piano works of Tristan Murail, including "Les travaux et les jours," a new work commissioned by Ms. Nonken. The tour dates will also include a rare, early piano piece, "Comme un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe," re-discovered by the composer, which was written for the admission exam to Olivier Messiaen's class. Other works on the program include "Estuaire," "Territoires de l'oubli," "Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire... (in memoriam Olivier Messiaen)," and "La Mandragore." |
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