Rocks, Scratchy Gramophones, and Repercussions

Videos of performances can be found here.

Composer biographies can be found here.

J.S. BACH/WEBERN   Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci for orchestra from The Musical Offering

DANIELE GHISI      Come di tempeste (2013)

HO CHEE KONG    Visions of Earthstone (2002)

WEBERN          Concerto for nine instruments, Op. 24

I.  Etwas lebhalt

II.  Sehr langsam

III. Sehr rasch

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J. S. BACH/WEBERN       

Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci for orchestra from The Musical Offering

Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci for orchestra from The Musical Offering

In addition to the Goldberg Variations, there is perhaps no better example of the creative powers of Johann Sebestian Bach than his collection of keyboard works found in The Musical Offering of 1747.  The now famous inspiration for the work was a single musical theme composed and presented to the composer by Frederick the Great (1712-1786) in May 1747, who challenged Bach first to improvise a three-voiced fugue on the theme, and which the composer realized at the keyboard of the King’s fortepiano.  The King later challenged Bach to compose a six-voiced fugue, with the result two months later of an entire collection of works based on the King’s theme.  The final work in the collection – the 6-voice Ricercata – is the culmination of the King’s challenge and has long been regarded as one of the definitive examples of the highest form of expression in polyphonic music.

In 1935, Anton Webern arranged the Ricercata for small orchestra, consisting of flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, and strings. This instrumental arrangement passes the contrapuntal lines at various tempi from one instrument to another, providing an ever-changing series of musical timbres and rhythms that help to highlight Bach’s intricate contrapuntal contours. In essence, Berg’s sets the original work into the context of the 20th Century technique of Klangfarbenmelodie (sound-colour-melody) – the rapid changing of musical colors which elevates timbre to a structural level in a musical composition (i.e. “a melody of tone colours”).

Come di tempeste

Time is a scraping engine, and the piece is a loose attempt to put it in motion. Musicians are four old gramophones, constantly in phase, granulating some old stuff. There’s no electronics, there’s essentially no particular instrumental technique. Not even one pizzicato. However, through the fabric, I’d love to catch an electroacoustic halo, a shadow flying between strings and light, as the halting flow of current through the wires.

Ten minutes run in a single slow passage. Yet, a certain distance remains between musicians and music: even in the most passionate parts, the sense lingers elsewhere. Intimacy is estrangement.

The rest includes: harmony (but isn’t it always the same?) through a jungle of glissandi (but who’s leaving, and who’s arriving? and where? and when?); near the end (but isn’t it the actual beginning?) we dock to something livelier and farther. During the journey: the on and off of the light in a grey hospital corridor. And a scent, as of october leaves, as of tempests. — Daniele Ghisi