New Music (Unlisted-2)

Performed by Julia Den Boer,

Commissioned by the SWR EXPERIMENTALStudio.  

Written with technical assistance from Gary Berger

PoseII: On the Shadows of Ideas (2013) - for Piano and Electronics

Solo trio --> standard-modell (Antoine Alerini, Noam Bierstone & Joshua Hyde)
Ensemble --> Orchestre des Lauréats du CNSMDP
Conductor --> Laurent Cuniot

"… Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, ni dans les opérations de l’art, ni dans celles de la nature, et l’on peut poser en principe que, dans tout opération, il y a une égale quantité de matière avant et après l’opération ; que la qualité et la quantité des principes est la même, et qu’il n’y a que des changements, des modifications…”. 
Extract from “Traité élémentaire de chimie” (1777) - Antoine Lavoisier



and matter was (not) perfectly conserved [2015] • for trio, ensemble & electronics

"where the murmurs die" - for guitar & orchestra
[HEADPHONES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]

Natalya Makovskaya - Guitar
Orchestre des Lauréats du CNSMDP
Philippe Aïche - conductor

where the murmurs die [2016] • for guitar & orchestra

trace - écart - for harp, electric guitar, cymbalum, double bass & electronics

Ensemble C Barré
Eva Debonne - harp
Cyril Dupuy - cymbalum
Thomas Keck - guitar
Charlotte Testu - double bass

Mónica Gil & Rudy Romeur - sound engineering

Premiered @ Festival Messiaen au Pays de la Meije 2017
Recorded @ GMEM Marseille

trace - écart [2017] • for harp, electric guitar, cymbalum, double bass & electronics

« ... What would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed … »

(Samuel Beckett)

FRANCISCO ALVARADO
corps et ombre ensemble s'engloutissent [2018]

Florentin Ginot - double bass

Ensemble LINEA
Adam Starkie - clarinet / bass clarinet
Marie Andrée Joerger - accordion
Victor Hocquet - percussion
Ieva Dudaite - prepared piano
Marco Fusi - violin
Elodie Gaudet - viola
Elsa Dorbath - cello

Claire Levacher - conductor

Éditions Durand

Premiered @ Opéra National du Rhin / Festival Musica 2018
Aide à l'écriture d'une oeuvre originale du ministère de la Culture 2018

---------------------------------------------

Taken from Samuel Beckett’s « textes pour ne rien dire », the quote « corps et ombre ensemble s’engloutissent » was an inspiration to stablish a body/shadow type of relationship, in three different layers in this piece. The relationship between the double bass player and its instrument, between the soloist instrument and the ensemble and finally, between the double bass sonorities and the musical material construction, through them.

	What most interested me in this Beckettian image is that shadow no long exists as a reflection of the body, damned to follow each given dictated gesture. By engulfing themselves, they are at the same level, trying to annihilate one another, “pills in the void”.

	I used this idea to elaborate the musical material. One could say that the double bass works as the body. Indeed, I started by composing the double bass line and by making spectral analysis of the sounds of this line (using informatic tools). I could extract notes, harmonic champs, rhythms, in short, a very rich musical reservoir that allowed me to write the ensemble part afterwards – the shadow. Nevertheless, during the piece, the ensemble will emancipate, proposing new sonorities that will be used by the double bass, gradually alternating roles. This ambiguity concerning the source, will be established from the beginning of the piece, that starts with an ensemble opening, that we may consider firstly as the “body”, but which is actually composed by sounds that the double bass will play later on, in a kind of anticipated consequence.

	The body/shadow relationship is also used to manage the instrumental density of the score, in the soloist, ensemble and tutti passages of the piece. Even if the double bass is clearly presented as the soloist, it is often delicately doubled by other instruments. It will melt sometimes with the ensemble or it will clearly play as the shadow of another instrument.

	Finally, the most visible body/shadow connection is the one between the double bass player and its instrument. Actually, we may have the impression of seeing two dancing bodies. Even if it is the player who drives the instrument, the last one, being considerably big, impose its rhythm, its cadence, a sound inertia.
As this implicit choreography evolves, one may ask the question: which on is the body, which one the shadow? And finally, which one is engulfing the other one?

corps et ombre ensemble s'engloutissent [2018] • for doublebass & ensemble

OPTICAL FLOW 1.1.1.1. 1.1.1. Perc.1, Perc.2, Hrp, Pno, 1.1.1.1.1 and electronics.
Premiered in April 2013 at CNSMDP, conducted by Robert HP Platz.

PoseII: On the Shadows of Ideas (2013) - for Piano and Electronics

Anthony Tan