Winner of the 16th Martirano award

echtzeitEnsemble
Conductor: Christof m. löser

Recording of the premiere performance.

28.1.2011

Visit my website: www.MichaelSeltenreich.com

Michael Seltenreich - Sparks and Flares

The Juilliard Orchestra
Robert Fleitz - Piano
Jeffrey Milarsky - Conductor

This piece is written in the memory of the French composer Henri Dutilleux who would have celebrated his 100th birthday at the time this piece was completed in January 2016. 

I started writing this piece in Paris in May 2013 when Dutilleux died aged 96. Dutilleux helped to shape and form my sound, taste and sense of aesthetics and for me was a symbol of French music. In deep morning I sketched the first few pages of this piece.  

In my first sketch there was no piano, and it was titled “Ascend”. Not long after I stopped working on this piece, I was too overtaken with grief, and I left Paris.  

About three years later, as his 100th birthday was nearing I decided to return to this piece and to add a piano.  

The piano for me represented the individual, a protagonist dealing with deep sorrow. A lonely voice in a world filled with voices.  

The strings start off the piece in a procession. The string writing of the first few pages is borrowing heavily from the baroque lamento, with a repeated pattern of notes that creates dissonances and resolutions and an ever descending bass.  

The piano has three main elements through-out this piece: 
*A three note motive (A-Bb-Db) which was taken from Dutilleux’s piece “The Shadows of Time”, a piece based on Anne Frank’s diary. In his piece, those three notes are sang by a child with the words “Pourquoi Nous?” – “Why us?”. 

The second element presented by the piano is a series of very quick disjunct patterns. Those patterns are supposed to represent murmuring, or crying in an onomatopoeia. 

The third and final major element is represented by thick chords played by the pianist who depict the church bells.  

As this piece is written about my grief, I thought that the Kübler-Ross model (better known as “The five stages of grief”) would be a suitable platform to shape the arc of the piece. The piece starts in Denial, goes through anger, bargaining, depression and finally concludes with acceptance.  


Seltenreich - Élégie (2016) for piano and string orchestra

Seltenreich - Onot for string quartet - 3rd Movement ("Autumn")

According to Carl Jung, archetypes are primordial ideas and conceptions that universally exist in the minds of all humans without regard to culture or education.

For example, Jung noted that all ancient cultures had a creation story. The stories themselves were vastly different but the existence of each of these stories hints at the fact that the idea of a creator was and is universal in every culture. In the case of this example the creator is the archetypal idea, and the creation story itself is a resulting manifestation of the archetype.

I found the notion of archetypes fascinating, and began to wonder whether music itself holds any archetypal ideas. The role of music is paramount in most, if not all, cultures and manifests in everything from the solemnity of worship to the most visceral celebration. As we know, the breadth of what music is can be vast, and this begs the question: which elements of music are archetypal and which are cultural? Can we find any primordial elements of music that are ubiquitous to all humans regardless of their musical or cultural background? 

I started writing this piece by writing its “archetype,” a musical idea from which all the materials of the piece will derive; in other words, I wrote a theme. Traditionally a piece starts by presenting a theme that later goes through various kinds of alterations and manipulations, but in the case of this piece, the theme (or archetype) is not presented in the beginning. The piece uses the archetype as the generator of the musical materials but at the same time the archetype (theme) is not introduced.

The piece is made up of six parts, five parts being different manifestations of the archetype, and the last part being the archetype itself. In each one of the five manifestations, only a certain aspect of the archetype seeps through to the notes and we only get a glimpse of the archetype; we only see its shadow. In the final and sixth part of the piece we finally get to listen to the archetype as it is. Would it sound familiar? Would it sound as if it was there throughout the entire piece?​
​


Seltenreich - ARCHETYPE - Tokyo Philharmonic

Seltenreich - ARCHETYPE - Excerpts

Schnaïm for two pianos by Michael Seltenreich

http://www.michaelseltenreich.com

Performed by Yuval Zorn and Ido Akov

This piece was commissioned for Festival Messiaen 2016 (http://www.festival-messiaen.com/) through the support of the Francis and Mica Salbert Foundation (La Foundation Francis et Mica Salabert)  and Ms. Hae-Sun Kang 

https://fondation-salabert.org/wp/
http://www.ensembleinter.com/en/membe...


When I was asked to write for two pianos, I immediately thought of the large repertoire of pieces for two pianos and I realized most of them fall into one of two categories: Pieces where the two grand pianos join to become one even greater piano, yet the maintain the sound and expression of a piano solo, and pieces who sound as if they are reductions or orchestral pieces. 

I decided to avoid both of those categories as much as possible. It was important to me to create a real chamber piece,  where the two performers converse and interact. And in its second part, instead of writing an orchestral reduction, I sought to replicate the sound of a real orchestra, and to create rich clouds of sound that have the force and resonance of an actual big orchestra. 


Quand je reçus la commande d’une œuvre pour deux pianos, j’ai immédiatement pensé au répertoire des œuvres pour deux pianos et je réalisais qu’on pouvait les ranger en deux catégories : les œuvres dans lesquelles les deux pianos se joignant en un plus grand piano (ou deux pianos sont techniquement nécessaires), mais en fait cela sonne comme une œuvre pour piano solo ; et les œuvres qui sonnent comme si elles étaient une sorte de réduction d’une œuvre orchestrale.
Je décidais d’éviter ces deux catégories autant que possible. Il était important pour moi de créer une vraie œuvre de musique de chambre dans laquelle les deux interprètes conversent. En terminant l’œuvre, je réalisais qu’en fait les deux pianos ne sonnaient pas comme une réduction d’orchestre mais plutôt comme un grand orchestre lui-même et par exemple, l’œuvre se termine par un énorme crescendo qui ne sonne pas comme une réduction mais au contraire avec la puissance et la force de tout l’orchestre.

Schnaim

Commissioned by Roy Oppenheim and 929 Organization for Haifa Symphony

Psalm 104 - Excerpt

Cover image by Eliza Bender

Jerusalem Premiere of ICD-10 Chapter V: Mental and behavioral disorders (2018) for ensemble

Yuval Zorn - Conductor

Flute - Michal Tikotzki
Oboe - Hila Tsabari
Clarinet - Danny Erdman

Percussion - Daniel Solomonov
Piano - Ido Akov

Violins - Yael Barolsky & Yonit Amitai
Viola - Miri Menasherov
Violoncello - Shira Mani

Israel Contemporary Players 

March 25th 2018 at Jerusalem Music Center



Program Note: 

Madness is a social construct that has known many definitions through-out history. The concept of madness is unique in western medicine such that its very definition is depended upon politics and social norms. For instance, at a not so distant point in history, homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness, and not much before that, women who had a “tendency to cause trouble” were diagnosed with hysteria. 

The good news is that as time went by, history got rid of many "mental illnesses" that today we treat their very categorization as offensive and unethical. The bad news is that we also invented quite a few new mental disorders that didn’t “exist” even 20 years ago. 

And it’s not over. It’s not unlikely that our children’s children or their children will be born into a world where eating meat is as insane an act as cannibalism, or a world where any religious believer is considered delusional, or even a world where people value their physical assets so much that the very act of giving to charity is considered wildly deranged.  

The grey line of mental disease is a fascinating one. When does sadness turn into depression? Where does worry turn into anxiety? How does passion turn into obsession? And when does faith turn into delusion? 

Writing this piece has forced me to explore this grey line between sanity and madness within myself. To my dismay, I discovered that crossing this line (at least in one direction) is a lot easier than we dare to realize.

In this piece I seek to play with the grey line of our own perception.
In a sense, this is a tone poem. A poem written by the World Health Organization (WHO) titled “International Classification of Diseases (revision 10)” and within it, I focus on chapter 5: “Mental and behavioral disorders”.

This piece presents the listener with 3 patients (movements), each with their own set of symptoms. Some of the symptoms may repeat for different patients, some may have different manifestations or different levels of severity.

Each of the patients has been diagnosed with at least one disorder described in chapter 5.

Case Study III (ICD-10: Mental and behavioral disorders)

Case Study II (ICD-10: Mental and behavioral disorders)

Cover Image by Eliza Bender

Jerusalem Premiere of ICD-10 Chapter V: Mental and behavioral disorders (2018) for ensemble

Yuval Zorn - Conductor

Flute - Michal Tikotzki
Oboe - Hila Tsabari
Clarinet - Danny Erdman

Percussion - Daniel Solomonov
Piano - Ido Akov

Violins - Yael Barolsky & Yonit Amitai
Viola - Miri Menasherov
Violoncello - Shira Mani

Israel Contemporary Players 

March 25th 2018 at Jerusalem Music Center



Program Note: 

Madness is a social construct that has known many definitions through-out history. The concept of madness is unique in western medicine such that its very definition is depended upon politics and social norms. For instance, at a not so distant point in history, homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness, and not much before that, women who had a “tendency to cause trouble” were diagnosed with hysteria. 

The good news is that as time went by, history got rid of many "mental illnesses" that today we treat their very categorization as offensive and unethical. The bad news is that we also invented quite a few new mental disorders that didn’t “exist” even 20 years ago. 

And it’s not over. It’s not unlikely that our children’s children or their children will be born into a world where eating meat is as insane an act as cannibalism, or a world where any religious believer is considered delusional, or even a world where people value their physical assets so much that the very act of giving to charity is considered wildly deranged.  

The grey line of mental disease is a fascinating one. When does sadness turn into depression? Where does worry turn into anxiety? How does passion turn into obsession? And when does faith turn into delusion? 

Writing this piece has forced me to explore this grey line between sanity and madness within myself. To my dismay, I discovered that crossing this line (at least in one direction) is a lot easier than we dare to realize.

In this piece I seek to play with the grey line of our own perception.
In a sense, this is a tone poem. A poem written by the World Health Organization (WHO) titled “International Classification of Diseases (revision 10)” and within it, I focus on chapter 5: “Mental and behavioral disorders”.

This piece presents the listener with 3 patients (movements), each with their own set of symptoms. Some of the symptoms may repeat for different patients, some may have different manifestations or different levels of severity.

Each of the patients has been diagnosed with at least one disorder described in chapter 5.

Case Study I (ICD-10: Mental and behavioral disorders)

Happy Birthday Beethoven

Performed at Aspen Music Festival 2019
Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra
Piotr Waclawik - Conductor


___________________________________________________^___

A Rube Goldberg Machine, is a machine that achieves trivial tasks through an overly inefficient and convoluted process. 

You may have seen “the marble rolling down a track to topple a domino piece that hits a lighter that lights a candle that burns a thread that releases a lever that...” well, you get the point. And all for what? To have the machine finally add some salt to a dish or perform some other trivial task; a task that clearly could have been achieved in a much more straight-forward manner.
 
It’s the complex and innovative way such a machine works, that gives it its raison d’etre. The machine stops being about the outcome, and instead lets us focus on the way that outcome is achieved. Often, the more elaborate, clever, and creative the machine is, the more we enjoy seeing it do its magic. 

It occurred to me that our music is also kind of a Rube Goldberg Machine. On the surface it appears as if the goal is to move from 
dominant to tonic, or from tension to release. Yet, a cadence on its own is hardly a piece. And so, composers find elaborate, clever, and creative manners to get from tension to release, making the process intentionally inefficient for the sake of that journey. A journey that may include twists and turns, and marbles and levers, 
and... you name it. 
 
This is my machine.

A Rube Goldberg Machine

Commissioned by Aspen Music Festival 2019
Premiered by Derek Wang @ Harris Hall

Cover art: Eliza Bender

Six Etudes for Piano

Native of Israel, Seltenreich has been performed by some of the world’s leading orchestras and ensembles, among them The Tokyo Philharmonic, The Israel Philharmonic, The Israeli Opera, and the Talea Ensemble. 
He has recently been commission by the Messiaen Festival in France, he has been offered a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival (2016), and was invited to the soundSCAPE Music Festival in Italy (2016). Seltenreich was selected as an Associate Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts’ residency with Georg Friedrich Haas (2016).  Seltenreich is the recipient of several domestic and international awards and is the youngest composer ever to be awarded the 1st prize in the Salvatore Martirano Composition Competition. Other distinctions include the Arthur Friedman prize for “an outstanding orchestral work” (2015) and the Frank Robert Abell Young Composer Competition for New Chamber Music (2015).
Seltenreich completed his Bachelor’s degree in music composition at Tel-Aviv University; and his Master’s degree at The Juilliard School in New York city under the direction of Matthias Pintscher.


Michael Seltenreich - Composer

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