25 februari, 2001 - Posthoornkerk, Amsterdam
CONCERT XX
25 februari, 2001 - Posthoornkerk, Amsterdam
CONCERT XX |
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presenteert'The Great Virtuoso Slugfest'ProgrammaRichard Barrett - knospend-gespaltener Carl Rosman, klarinet Joseph Klein - Der Ohrenzeuge Helen Bledsoe, fluit Richard Barrett - CHARON (Carl) Carl Rosman, klarinet Benjamin Marks - La Chute (Mark) Mark Knoop, piano Brian Ferneyhough - Time and Motion Study #1 (Carl) Carl Rosman, klarinet Pauze Announcement of Winner of Ferneyhough Contest Richard Barrett - Interference Carl Rosman, klarinet, stem, drum Samuel Vriezen - Toccata #1 Mark Knoop, piano Mark Applebaum - Entre Funerailles IV Helen Bledsoe, fluit Michael Finnissy - WAM Mark Knoop, pianoforte Carl Rosman, klarinet Helen Bledsoe, fluit Toelichtingenknospend-gespaltener Richard Barrett: "knospend-gespaltener was completed in early September 1993, commissioned by Andrew Sparling, to whom it is dedicated and who gave the first performance on 21 September 1993 at St.Giles Church, Cripplegate, London. Like others of my soloistic compositions, it begins from a view of the instrument as a space or theatre within which the player may move in order to articulate an in-time structure - as opposed to elaborating abstract structures of pitch, rhythm and so on. The title (budding-fissured) is derived from a poem by Paul Celan; the form centres on the expansion of four registral layers (heard at the outset compressed into a rapid and regular four-note iteration) and, eventually, the irruption into this process of increasingly alien material: the vigorous propulsion of the opening is torn apart to lay bare its visceral inner structure - and that of the clarinet". Der Ohrenzeuge Joseph Klein: "Der Ohrenzeuge (The Earwitness) is based upon the character of the same name from Der Ohrenzeuge: Funfzig charaktere (Earwitness: Fifty Characters), by Elias Canetti (1905-1994). In this book, Canetti relies on poetic imagery, singular insights, and unabashed wordplay to display fifty ironic paradigms of human behavior. The present work attempts to convey the essence of this character through musical metaphor". CHARON Richard Barrett: "CHARON was completed in April 1995, and was commissioned by Andrew Sparling with funds from the Arts Council of England. It is dedicated to Konrad Boehmer. As a byproduct of the keywork evolved for woodwind instruments in the service of achieving fluency in the chromatic domain, various zones open up within the overall range which offer much subtler shadings of pitch as well as timbre, and in CHARON, more so than its predecessor (and in a way companion-piece) knospend-gespaltener for clarinet in C, the musical material is developed from a close examination of these zones and their irregularities, and alongside a formal profile whose strict and (almost) undeviating progression might call to mind the mythical ferryman of the dead from whom the music takes its title, perhaps (since this was in my mind at the time of composition) even his specific incarnation in the Orfeo of Monteverdi. It might be apposite to quote (from the beginning of the score) a few of this characters words from Alessandro Striggios libretto, which might be translated as "O you who before death approach these shores so rashly, halt your steps; to plough these waves is not given to mortal man, nor can the living take shelter with the dead", and their echo (at the end of the score) in Paul Celans "Da: der zerbissene / Ewigkeitsgroschen, zu uns / heraufgespien durch die Maschen" (There: the bitten-through eternity penny, spewed up to us through the netting)". La Chûte Benjamin Marks: "This is the first in a series of compositions that deals with the Icarus/Daedalus myth. The piece should not be taken as a narrative of Icarus's destiny with the sky, although this piece is a response to that story, but more as an examination of musical material thrown into a structure that becomes increasingly overwhelming. The reading of the myth is that Icarus is not the artist/hero who is unable to make the journey (here Daedalus is the true artist/hero - he who turns his mind to unknown arts and actually makes it across the sea!). Rather, Icarus is a young boy faced with a situation in which the simple restrictions required of him are impossible. Unable to stay within strict boundaries both the joys and the dangers of new realms are opened up". Time and Motion Study I Brian Ferneyhough: "This work began life in 1970 as a series of fragments for solo clarinet. Coming back to this material in 1977 caused me to reconsider my position in respect of the import, scope and mode of functioning of fragmentation as a formative principle. Rather than disguise the passing of the intervening years, I decided to emphasize it: the 'raw' elements were forced to generate new offshoots by being passed, under pressure, through an alien formal grid. The final importance of the original fragments was thus neither as theme nor motive, but resided in their capacity to motivate further levels of discourse. Having fulfilled this function, they sink back into the newly-created network of procedures, their natural resistance transformed into structural energy. Fundamental concern of the work is the vision of a polyphonic mode of discourse transposed to the framework of a monophonic instrument. Many ploys and strategems are resorted to in order to make this possible, such as differentiation of parametric levels, underlining of lines of force with systematic deployment of articulative nuance, and the overlapping of related numerical filtering procedures at different speeds on different levels of the discourse. Time and Motion Study I is built up around a core of two central principles: (1) the opposition and integration of two contrasted types of activity - the one rapid and regular, the other disjointed and gestural, with wide leaps and unpredictable rhythmic patterns; (2) the application, in various roles, of the proportions inherent in the Fibonacci Series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...). Right from the outset these worlds are brought into unmediated confrontation. The further course of this 9 minute work is made up of the violent filtering of the energies thus liberated through the dexterity and bodily flexibility of the performer. As in Antonin Artaud's 'Theater of Cruelty', each area of the work calls forth resonances from different parts of the total organism performer/instrument/context. This, for me, is 'drama in music'". Interference Richard Barrett: " The title of interference refers to the patterns produced by interacting beams of electromagnetic radiation or subatomic particles, as in the famous two-slit experiment. This experiment, simple and straightforward in itself, nevertheless has deep and unresolved implications for the nature of physical reality, leading as it does to the mysterious and (presently?) unanswerable question of what is "really happening" at the quantum level of space and time. Such ideas permeate the structure of the composition in various ways. It is also in another sense a work of speculation, in that the contrabass clarinet is itself a relatively unknown instrument, especially in a solo context, bearing in mind the remarkable but isolated contributions of such players as Anthony Braxton and Peter van Bergen. Much of the material evolved out of extensive consultations with Carl Rosman, some of whose other abilities suggested the prosthetic extension of the instrument using the players voice (with a range of four and a half octaves) and a pedal bass drum. Central to my intentions was to discover or develop a virtuosity inherent to the instrument and then extrapolate it to an almost (?) absurd extreme. The Latin text of the vocal part is from Lucretius' poem De rerum natura (On the nature of things), and describes the sudden and violent destruction of the world, though under what circumstances and for what reasons is unclear, since the crucial lines before the chosen fragment have been lost. interference was begun in 1996 and completed in February 2000, commissioned by ELISION, and is dedicated to Carl Rosman". Toccata #1 Samuel Vriezen: "Hoe schrijft men Toccata nr. 1. Men neme 216 cellen en vulle deze met motiefjes. De rangschikking van de motiefjes in de cellen vormt een soort overlappend netwerk. De motiefjes zijn zelf nogal arbitrair en hun precieze volgorde wordt door toeval bepaald. Men groepere de motiefjes in reeksen van uiteenlopende lengte. Dit worden dan de frasen. Laat de motiefjes binnen elke frase zich met elkaar vermengen tot een papje. Gebruik hiertoe herhalingen en verwevingen, smaak naar smaak toevoegen. Wat ontstaat is een merkwaardige cocktail van uiteenlopende, maar altijd eenstemmige texturen, met een instabiele half-samenhangende, half-loshangende structuur, een soort concatenatie van grillige volzinnen die elk uit tien romans tegelijk zijn geplukt". Martijn Voorvelt: "Weet je dat het qua structuur erg nachtegalig is? Korte, door stiltes onderbroken strofen die steeds gebaseerd zijn op een serie motieven/trillers die meestal aan herhaling onderhevig zijn, en dan met grote dynamische verschillen, en gekke register-uitschieters. Zo zingt een nachtegaal". Entre Funerailles IV Mark Applebaum: "Entre Funerailles IV for Flute has the form of a continuous variation in which each measure can be heard as a transformation of the previous one. However, the number of exact transformations between measures is in a constant state of flux, producing moments of logical consequence as well as incongruous, surreal ones". WAM Ian Pace: "WAM is an assemblage of distorted fragments from Mozart's early symphonies, piano concertos and divertimenti, removed from their original contexts, stripped naked then reclothed in a late 20th century musical idiom. The three independent instrumental parts are unsynchronized; there is no score. Each part has a different shape and scenario: the piano progresses down the dynamic scale, texturally from violent accretions of multiple lines towards sparse, disjunct gestures unable to form themselves into a coherent whole; the flute's wildest writing, actually on the piccolo, is tempered by its going offstage during this section, to return with something more regular; whilst the bass clarinet is also driven offstage, this time never to return, playing a continual series of stabbing gestures. The work is the antithesis of all that Mozart has come to stand for, the 'other' that must be excluded if Mozart's reputation is to remain unquestioned. The work was first performed by member of IXION in 1992". CONCERTEN TOT EN MET is vier jaar geleden begonnen als podium voor jonge componisten en jonge uitvoerenden om naar believen er op los te programmeren. Inmiddels hebben vele bijzondere concerten plaatsgevonden, met musici als het Zephyr Kwartet, Daniel Rowland en Bernd Brackman, het Amsterdams Kwintet, het Malle Symen Kwartet, ensemble Insomnio, met werken van componisten als Martijn Voorvelt, Rozalie Hirs, Cynthie van Eijden, Calliope Tsoupaki, Brian Ferneyhough en vele anderen, naast speciale projecten zoals multimedia-avonden en concerten met schoolkinderen. In Maart organiseert Concerten Tot en Met de volgende concerten: 11 Maart - CONCERT XXI - Dante Oei, componist, pianist en toetsenist van The Scene speelt werken van Toon Vandevorst, Samuel Vriezen, Morton Feldman en John Cage. 24 Maart - CONCERT XXII - Lydia Forbes, viool en Danny Tunick, slagwerk spelen een programma in het kader van de Tera de Marez Oyens-prijs met werk van Tera de Marez Oyens en nieuwe stukken van Rocco Havelaar, Dante Oei, Toon Vandevorst en anderen. Voor informatie kunt U zich wenden tot Samuel Vriezen: sqv@xs4all; 020-3640437 Dit programma zal worden opgenomen door De Concertzender. BRIAN FERNEYHOUGH CONTEST If you want to make a chance to win a copy of 'Dialektik der Aufklaerung' by Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Max Horkheimer, please fill out the following and put it on the box-office table at the beginning of the break. Name: Address: Phone Number: Email: How many noteheads do you think appear in the score of Mr. Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study #1? |
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