for Paetzold contrabass recorder in F and electronics (2007 rev. 2010)

First performance Haute École de Musique de Lausanne, Grande Salle 2007
Dario Benigno, Paetzold recorder | Alessandro Ratoci, live electronics

The word “isomorphism” applies when two complex structures can be mapped onto each other, in such a way that to each part of one structure there is a corresponding part in the other structure, where “corresponding” means that the two parts play similar roles in their respective structures.
(Hofstaedter,  Gödel, Escher, Bach, p. 49)

The full title “Fantasia Canonica – Resolutio I per Flauto Paetzold F Contrabass and Live Electronics” denounce that the work is built on an isomorphic canon, where each part can be mapped onto every other—like reading the same page in multiple directions—but it is no mere formal experiment. It’s a stark clash between precise architecture and the darkness it summons: a solitary walk through deserted suburbs or a wilderness that offers no rest. Above all, it is a thanksgiving to music that saves oneself’s life.

…in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni…

Col Favore delle Tenebre for Paetzold recorder and electronic (2007, rev. 2010)

Performance: Oleg Tantsov (bass clarinet) and the author (electronics).
“Smena” (Kazan City, Russia). Apr. 8, 2021

An abbreviation “ISM” is an ironic allusion to IDM genre (“Intelligent Dance
Music”), so “ISM” means “Intelligent Sitting Music”. In the piece there are bass clarinet with two long delays and a click which sounds through the speakers, not through the headphones. An artistic idea is to avoid headphones, cables and devices which inhabit a performer. At the same time the click becomes an extra part of the piece. It starts with regular beat marking and then changes to flexible rhythm and finally imitate the clarinet part (and this is a real hint to IDM compositions where long continuous pitches often oppose to sophisticated percussion rhythm).

The clarinet part is ‘reflected’ by two delays and thus represents a 3-voice canon. But it is written in such manner that the polyphony and starting a new ‘voice’ is not marked but hidden: all episodes of the work smoothly change one another and every episode is gradually ‘filling’ by the sound.

An impression from my trip to the Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city (2018) in Moscow — Izhevsk train became an additional musical material for the work. Rails were producing sustained pitches building a chord reminding resonating minor triad on long turnings.

MCME in Smena Kazan

ISM for Reflected Bass Clarinet and Click

For viola and live-electronics

Viola - Gleb Khokhlov 
Electronics - Nikolay Khrust 

12.09.2022
Art-center "Composer's box", Tchaikovsky city

am i?

EXCERPT #02

For large versatile ensemble (20 players).
Commissioned by Acht Brücken - Musik in Köln and Deutscher Musikrat.

Performed by the Klangforum Wien, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann.

Live-recording of the world premiere at Acht Brücken Festival 2022 on April 30th 2022, at Stadthalle Köln-Mülheim.
Recording: Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (West-German Radio Broadcast/Cologne)


✶ ✶ ✶

By the sea, by the dreary, night-colored sea,
A young man stands;
His heart full of anguish, his head full of doubts,
And with pale lips he questions the billows:
(Heinrich Heine, Questions, from: Book of Songs, North Sea, Second Cycle, 1826)

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me
(Gus Kahn, Dream a little dream of me)

… now it has happened. Nothing more. Just this, and in this way—now it has happened. If I should try to explain it, it means that that happening which gave rise to my cry has only now, with the rejoinder, really and undoubtedly happened.
(Original Remembrance, from: Dialogue, 1929, Martin Buber)

The two Voyager spacecraft are bound for the stars. Affixed to each is a gold-plated copper phonograph record with a cartridge and stylus and, on the aluminum record jacket, instructions for use. We sent something about our genes, something about our brains, and something about our libraries to other beings who might sail the sea of interstellar space. But we didn’t want to send primarily scientific information. […] Instead we wanted to tell those other beings something about what seems unique about ourselves.
(Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980)

“Oh solve me the riddle of Life,
The torturing, deathless riddle
Which has cracked so many heads, […]
Poor, perspiring heads of people—
Tell me, what is Man? And what's his meaning?
Where does he come from? Where is he going?
Who dwells up there among the golden stars?”

Say "Night-ie night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

But now something happened with me. As though I had till now had no other access from the world to sensation save that of the ear and now discovered myself as a being simply equipped with senses, both those clothed in the bodily organs and the naked senses, so I exposed myself to the distance, open to all sensation and perception.

Although the recipients may not know any languages of the Earth, we included greetings in sixty human tongues, as well as the helos of the humpback whales. We sent photographs of humans from all over the world caring for one another, learning, fabricating tools and art and responding to challenges. There is an hour and a half of exquisite music from many cultures, some of it expressing our sense of cosmic loneliness, our wish to end our isolation, our longing to make contact with other beings in the Cosmos.

Stars fading, but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this

The billows are whispering their eternal whispers.
The wind blows on, the clouds go sailing;
The stars keep twinkling, indifferent and cold.
And a fool waits for his answer.

[…] But the Voyager record is on its way out of the solar system. The erosion in interstellar space – chiefly cosmic rays and impacting dust grains—is so slow that the information on the record will last a billion years. Genes and brains and books encode information differently and persist thorugh time at different rates. But the persistence of the memory of the human species will be far longer in the impressed metal grooves on the Voyager interstellar record.

And then, not from a distance but from the air round about me, noiselessly, came the answer. Really it did not come; it was there.
It had been there—so I may explain it—even before my cry: there it was, and now, when I laid myself open to it,
it let itself be received by me.

craving your kiss (2020) // Klangforum Wien (Excerpt #2)

Live-recording of the performance on June 17, 2023 at Domicil, Dortmund (Germany)

Composition and live-electronic programming: Matthias Krüger

Performed by ensemble consord: 

Norbert Fabritius, trumpet
Karsten Süßmilch, trombone
Gereon Voß, drumset
Felix Feßke, bass drum 
Deborah Rawlings, synthesizer
Stephan Wolke, electric guitar
Rebekka Stephan, electric cello

Tamon Yashima, conductor
Robert Beck, live-electronic triggering

André Weisse, Matthias Krüger – sound direction

Recording: Norbert Fabritius
Mix: Matthias Krüger

le vide à perdre (2016, rev. 2019) // ensemble consord

for flute, clarinet, cello and piano
September 2023 - Ensemble Cairn 
(Cédric Jullion, Ayumi Mori, Alexa Ciciretti , Maroussia Gentet)
Musica Festival - Strasbourg
(recording: Frédéric Apfell)

Fumo di pietra (flute, clarinet, cello and piano)

1st tapeworms session. 27.02.2024
Ilya Vyazov: https://on.soundcloud.com/CpkYE

IV_Scolex_LPS_27-02-2024

3rd session of tapeworms.
Franco Donatoni "Omar"
Ilya Vyazov

IV_Cestode_EO_19-03-2024

4 Soliloquies on "making of – intimacy" for Flute solo
recording of the first performance – Festival "listening closely"
Karl-Heinz Schütz – Flute

4 Soliloquies on „making of – intimacy“ 

Das Weiterschreiben des Flötenkonzerts als 4 Monologe für das Soloinstruments des Konzerts beschäftigt sich wie dieses mit der Normierung der intimen Erfahrung, lässt sie als Klangformen in ihrer Vorgeformtheit und Schablonisierung durchsichtig werden. Zugleich arbeitet das Stück an der Spezifikation der Klangformen und -strukturen durch kompositorische Transformationen und unternimmt den Versuch, die normierten Empfindungen, die mit den überkommenen und zumeist ungefragt übernommenen Klanggestalten einhergehen, aufzulösen und durch eine gehobene, ins „genau-Jetzt-so-seiende“ Präsenz zu überführen.
Thematisiert werden die in klangliche-flötistische Erscheinungen transformierten Erfahrungen unseres intimen Erlebens, Erfahrungen, die wir alle kennen, die jede und jeder von uns für sich selbst als „die Besonderen“ erlebt haben wird. Deren Formen und Erleben sind aber kulturell geprägt. Unsere Wahrnehmung und unser Erleben sind geprägt durch die Welt, in der wir leben: Wir lernen zu hören und das Gehörte entsprechend den geltenden Konventionen zu erleben. Die kompositorische Arbeit an der Vorgeformtheit unseres Erlebens bietet die Möglichkeit, eine einzigartige, unwiederbringliche intime Klang-Erfahrung zu kreieren. Klang-Erfahrungen, die sich einer Schubladisierung verweigern und sich nicht sofort einordnen lassen; deren Erfahrung uns selbst wiederum intim werden lässt, indem wir „nackt“ vor ihnen sind und sie als solche hören.
Die Idiomatik der Klangerzeugung als intime Geste, der Ton, der Klang als Formung der Lippen, Klangnuancierungen werden zu klang-körperlichen Erscheinungen weitergearbeitet, werden auf Muster und Figuren projiziert, die dadurch neue Gestalt annehmen. Und auch die Flöte soll dadurch sich neu gestalten, in der Erstellung einer anderen Intimität, indem sie über das Thema monologisiert.

4 Soliloquies on "making of – intimacy" for Flute solo

Göttin der Geschichte(2024) for Mezzo-soprano and  Orchestra after a poem "Asow-Feldzug" by Tomas Venclova, Christina Daletska, mezzo-soprano , Basel Sinfonietta, Titus Engel, WP Warsaw, Warsaw Autumn 2024, Recorded by Polskie Radio 22.09.2024

Göttin der Geschichte (2024) für Mezzosopran und Orchester

for solo harp, solo accordion and ensemble

commissioned by ensemble 2e2m / 
Aide à l’écriture d’une œuvre musicale originale 
du Ministère de la Culture/
Direction régionale des affaires culturelles 
d’Île-de-France

Pascal Contet -accordéon solo 
Marion Lénart -harpe solo
Léo Margue - conductor
Ensemble 2e2m

25.04.2024, CRR de Paris

ISM for Reflected Bass Clarinet and Click

nikolaykhrust