Tracklist:1 Composé 00:00:00
2 Floréal 00:14:23
3 Changeant 00:24:42
4 Hommage À Heinrich Schütz 00:36:51
5 Surprise 00:42:13
AN INTRODUCTION BY THE COMPOSER
The work "Composé" for two pianos and orchestral groups
was written for the piano-playing brothers Kontarsky.
The piece benefited considerably from the stimulus of
Dr. Strobel, the great patron of new music, and the
first performance took place at Donaueschingen in 1967.
"Composé" means put together, composed; and by this
is understood an intricate web in two colours, in which
figuration and basic colour vary. At first sight it is a
bewildering piece, yet its form is quite clear, being in five
parts. It is characterised by powerful musical outbursts,
in which particles of sound arranged in the most delicate
variations struggle desperately together, giving an effect
that can be very primitive, folkish, or archetypal. Then an
orchestral crescendo, very varied in harmony, leads to
absurd coagulations of sound, with the two pianos finding
an outlet in wave-like structures in the high register.
The most important turning-point is reached roughly in the
middle of the piece, where a ship's bell announces the
start of the improvisatory section of the composition.
After this the playing is fired with a phosphorescent,
iridescent quality which brings relief-and leads to the
ending with a monstrous cadence in which heavy chains
are dropped onto a gong lying on the floor.
In 1969 I received a commission from the Library of
Congress in Washington to write a work for large orchestra
for the Library's thirtieth anniversary. When the work
was already half-finished, there came a letter from the
Director of the Institute: to his consternation there had
been a mistake, and I was to write a piece for small
orchestra as the room was too small for a large orchestra.
To avoid such problems in the future I sketched the piece
out in three versions at once: for small, medium-sized,
or large orchestra. The title "Floréal" evokes associations
with blossoms and flowers: however, it is not a program-
matic allusion. I tried rather to write a piece in which the
concepts "slow" and "quick" take on a new dimension,
There is a confrontation between quick figures in a slow
tempo and slow rhythmic values in a quick tempo. The
composition is also based on the idea of the dramatic use
of tone-colour, showing the interaction between "density"
and "rhythm" of tone-colour.
In past years I have used various kinds of improvisation
in my compositions. A synthesis of all the experience I had
thereby gained found expression in the work "Changeant"
for cello and orchestra. I saw before me many quite
contradictory aleatoric versions of this composition,
realised through a technique free from all interpretative
notions, as if everything had been forgotten. Just as the
most diverse musical shapes and forms were passing
before me, I called a halt. The work remained fixed in its
present form before me.
"Changeant" signifies the interplay between various
colours. In the course of the piece a particular style of
playing is evolved in which delicate nuances of colour and
small rhythmic values undergo a continuous process of
renewal and development. The climax is reached at the
point where a player with thimbles on his fingers impro-
vises on the harpsichord lid, the bongo player "writes"
on his instrument with his fingers, and the harp's "accords
lancés" (sweeping chord clusters) introduce the great cello
cadenza. This cadenza degenerates into music that is
"unthinkable" and absurd, in which the greatest virtuosity
is merged with off-the-cuff improvisation at the peak of
the soloist's musical consciousness.
"Changeant'*' is dedicated to Siegfried Palm and it was he
who first performed the work in 1968 at one of the concerts
in the "Music of Our Time" series in Cologne.
"Hommage Heinrich Schütz," a choral work written in
1964, was inspired by study of motets by Schütz. The basic
idea of the composition is the evolution from speech
sounds to mixtures of sung tone organised vertically and
horizontally, and back again to the wide spectrum of
sound produced by whispering.
One of the first conductors to take up my music on the
international scene was Antonio Janigro. When in 1955
he founded I Solisti di Zagreb, the chamber orchestra
which has since become world-famous, I wrote a whole
series of compositions for this string ensemble who
played them throughout the world. This was also the case
with "Surprise," which was given its first performance
by Janigro at the 1967 Zagreb Biennial Festival. "Surprise"
is a short piece which starts in a transparent chamber
style but is developed by the contrapuntal use of varying
colours and comes to a surprising conclusion in a
grandly laid-out crescendo.
Milko Kelemen
Credits:
Composed By, Liner Notes - Milko Kelemen
Photography By [Colour] - Lore Bermbach
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