Verblendungen
Commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
| Work notes | Tape realised in the GRM’s digital studio (Paris) and the Finnish Radio’s Experimental Studio |
| Publisher | Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Helsinki |
| Category | Orchestra |
| Sub Category | Large Orchestra |
| Year Composed | 1984 |
| Duration | 14 Minutes |
| Orchestration | 1+afl(pic).1.1.asx.1(cbn)/4111/2perc/hp.pf/str(4.4.5.3.2)/tape |
| Availability | Hire |
Programme Note
Verblendungen (1984)
The tape part has been worked out with GRM’s digital tools for manipulating and transforming concrete sound material. The basic material for the tape consists of two violin sounds, a sforzato stroke and a pizzicato. From these two sounds I have built a quasi-string orchestra with a very wide pitch range. The timbres on the tape are very homogeneous because of this single reference spectrum.
The total plan for the use of timbre in the piece is based on the idea that the orchestra and the tape are moving in opposite directions with respect to the tone-noise axis. The piece starts with a thick orchestral tutti, which is first hidden and than shaded by the noise on the tape. During the piece the orchestral colouring is transformed into instrumental noises, which, before withering away, shade the quasi-string orchestra on the tape. The orchestra is built to have a heterogeneous nature to contrast with the even colours on the tape. In spite of their different, sometimes opposite materials, the orchestra and the tape should build a common, inseparable sound world. When composing the piece an important factor has been the relation of the surface structure and deeper musical and formal structures. In my network of connections between different parameters I am searching for intersections not only vertically and horizontally on the time axis, but also in the direction of depth, as if the sounds were organised in think layers in three dimensional perspective, starting from dry, grainy sounds in front and moving towards smooth, more resonant ones.
Dazzling, different surfaces, tissues, textures. Weights, gravity. To be blinded. Interpolations. Reflections. Death. The sum of independent worlds. Shading, refracting the colour.
