elision

Premier of elision (1997) Sydney Opera House, 27 Jun 1999

elision was commissioned by the Australian ELISION ensemble by its artistic director Daryl Buckley whom I met in November 1993 after the premiere of Entsagung at IRCAM (Paris). The original plan to write an ensemble piece with a solo electric guitar had to be revised simply due to the fact that the distance between Australia and Vienna was to big, and communication via fax and email was not sufficient for such a delicate matter. An invitation to work with the ensemble in Australia had to be cancelled due to personal reasons. Fortunately, I stayed constantly in contact with Daryl Buckley discussing various topics related to this composition where we realized that we share a similar view of composition aujourd'hui: music that emerges as a sound process by the interaction of highly complex materials and it derivates. During the festival "WIEN MODERN 1996" I had the chance to listen to ensemble playing live (although I was acquainted with their work through listening to several of their CD's) and I was fascinated how the musicians were interested in exploring new playing techniques and experimenting with sounds.

Several months later when I was Paris again I started to sketch the process of the piece during a never-ending train ride towards a Parisian sub-urb: four basically low-pitched instruments of different types (bass clarinet, french horn, double bass and percussions) using the same basic sound material ("Klangtypen") which is, though, carefully modelled individually for each instrument's specific physical-acoustical properties.

By this, a complex network of structural relationships was established which draws its power from the dialetic between unity and diversity. On the one hand, there is a tendency of unification were the different instruments try (so to speak) to achieve similar sound results although they are - physically - not compatible acoustical systems. On the other hand, one can also observe the opposed strategy, namely to create individual gestures which cannot be imitated by the other instruments.

This network provides a field of possibilities which is explored like in a drama on stage: in the beginning, the four protagonists are using the same material and try to melt into a similar sonic result (which, by the way, is achieved by a sort of time-variant canonic structure). During the process of the piece, the tendency of individualisation becomes more and more stronger, resulting in a state where each instrument is speaking "with its own tongue".

In this way, the piece exceeds its inherent musical domains and becomes a metaphor for a sociological situation at the end of this millennium.

Updated: 28 Jan 2005