Nahi (2007)
Data
Version of “Gerok” for seventeen instruments: flute / piccolo / flute in G, oboe / English horn, clarinet in B ♭ / bass clarinet in B ♭, bassoon / contrabassoon, trumpet in C, horn, trombone, tuba, three percussions, piano, two violins, viola, cello and double bass.
Duration: 11 min approx.
World-premiere by Arcema Ensemble conducted by Julien Guénebaut, in the Cortot Music Hall of Paris in 2007
Published at BabelScores / Paris.
Commentary
This work consists of three movements.
The first is composed on the idea of attack and resonance.
The auditor will hear large orchestral blocks, tuttis, sometimes isolated or sometimes in groups of two, three, four, five … These blocks give off “artificial” resonances elaborated by different compositional techniques and “modes de jeux” (effects).
As the discourse advances, these sound blocks and their respective resonances interpenetrate and merge with each other, resulting in complex and varied “sound forms”.
The second movement is based on the idea of the undulating line, replacing the idea of the sound block, of verticality, of the first movement and keeping a common thread with the previous movement: resonance.
The lines proliferate towards a polyphony that progressively extends, from woods to metals and to strings.
Auditory perception is that of a texture that builds up and disintegrates towards the end of the movement.
In the background the idea of resonance evolves, represented by a wide sound spectrum.
Unlike what happened in the first movement, the resonance develops in a different musical time, of very slow evolution, almost without connection with the polyphony of the sound foreground.
The goal of the composer is to achieve two simultaneous times of independent evolution and two different sound planes, where the second plane helps to highlight the first perceptual plane.
In the third movement we hear again the sound blocks, now multiplied in groups of short durations and associated with the accentuation of a rhythmic pattern that gives unity to the whole movement.
This rhythmic substrate is subjected to contraction and dilation techniques of its constituent cells and developed by a multiplicity of articulations. Towards the end of the work we hear again the idea of resonance of the two previous movements, in the strings, percussions and woods, in another different, static musical time, which serves as the background and highlights the main idea of this final movement: the rhythmic pattern.