Polskie Radio Dwójka – Christoph Renhart

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Catalogue des Arts et Métiers
for ensemble (2018)

Catalogue des Arts et Métiers was composed in 2018. It was premiered at the ORF musikprotokoll 2018 by the Ensemble Zeitfluss conducted by Edo Micic. The recording of the premiere was successfully presented at the 66th International Rostrum of Composers in San Carlos di Bariloche, Argentine. The work was awarded the title recommended work at this competition organised by the International Music Council.

One of Paris’s most exciting places is sited in the Rue Réaumur 60. The Musée des Arts et Métiers is not only a harbourage to many technical exhibits and industrial products – it is also the stage in Eco’s grand novel Il pendolo di Foucault. A venue full of stories and a panopticon of ideas that once became manifest.

My work revisits the yellowed tales that might be borne in all those objects, cars, tins, rackwheels, periscopes and displays them in a ‘sonic catalogue’. In three parts that are each named after a raw material, we hear about the colourful world of metals – bunte Welt der Metalle, about the sound of silk – Klang nach Seide and about the imperial grace of marble. Meanwhile, hammering rhythms are advancing – naturalistically contouring monotonic manufacturing processes. Yet, they seem to keep an ironising distance to the delicate and occasionally Mannerist passages at the same moment. Both idylls are delusions and turn out to be idealised illustrations. One could easily get bedazzled by the goldsmithery cast in the sounds of the celesta and sucked into the swirls of the marching tuttis. On that note everything is bound to end in smoke. An ignis fatuus evaporating.

INSTRUMENTATION:
1-0-1(bcl)-ssx-0–1-0-0-0–1perc-pno(cel)–1-1-2-1-1

PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS:
vibraphone, marimbaphone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, wood blocks, tam-tam, bass drum

DURATION:
10 minutes

PUBLISHED BY:
Universal Edition

PREMIERE:
October 6, 2018 • Graz, Helmut List Halle • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor •

PERFORMANCES:

October 9, 2018 • Radio Ö1, Zeit-Ton • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
May 14, 2019 • Bariloche, Argentina, 66th International Rostrum of Composers • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
May 20, 2019 • Radio Ö1, Des-Cis • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
June 3, 2019 • Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, Geografia dos sons • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
June 11, 2019 • Radio YLE, Ajassa soi • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
June 23, 2019 • Radio Ö1, Zeit-Ton • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
June 27, 2019 • Radio Beograd 3, Muzika viva • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
August 7, 2019 • Treci program hrvatskoga radija, Izlog sadašnjice • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
September 18, 2019 • rbb kultur, Musik der Gegenwart • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
September 23, 2019 • sverige radio P2, Nya klanger från Rostrum 2019 – del 1 • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
October 16, 2019 • Latvijas Radio 3 – Klasika, ‘Rostrum 2019’ II • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
October 16, 2019 • Polskie Radio Dwójka, Filharmonii Dwójki • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
February 20, 2020 • Radio RTE lyric, The Blue of the Night with Bernard Clarke • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
March 16, 2020 • Radio Ö1, Zeit-Ton • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
September 09, 2020 • Radio RTV SLO, Rostrum 2019 – ostro uho – 1 • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
April 11, 2021 • Radio Ö1, Zeit-Ton extended • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor
October 21, 2021 • Radio BBC 3, Radio 3 in Concert
December 16, 2021 • Radio France Musique, Nuit spéciale France Musique • Ensemble Zeitfluss • Edo Micic, conductor

«Catalogue des Arts et Métiers» was awarded the title «Recommended Work» at the 66th International Rostrum of Composers and has been aired by several radio stations since 2018.

Epitaph für Ovid Naso | Hugo Wolf Quartett

Epitaph für Ovid Naso
for string quartet (2011, revised 2014)

English

The five movements of my first string quartet «Epitaph for Ovid Naso» blend landscapes, rhythms of archaic rites, the scent of Roman vine and nostalgia that is breaking through again and again for a tale from the times of empires long fallen apart. The figures coming into picture proclaim the melancholy falling on simple life like a heavy waft of mist. Furrowed by the unwrought verses of their austere daily routine, they uniformly and artlessly hammer out their rhythms in isolated spots from the amorphous desert backdrop. Time and again—washed around by the surges of the sea—their voices rise up from the bulge of yellowed memories.

We are drawn into the sounds disgorged by Poseidon‘s abyss, and see «on Tauris in the evening» a barbaric ritual, which ebbs away in a wild spree. At the end, we find our way back «to that era» which seems to be shaped by a vague flurry of activity. We longingly cast a final look at Vienna, where, as we know, the world still perishes a little later.

The string quartet was written in 2010–11 and was revised in 2014. The work was awarded the composition prize written out by jeuness, the Hugo Wolf Quartet and the Alban Berg Foundation.

German

Die fünf Sätze meines ersten Streichquartetts »Epitaph für Ovid Naso« vermengen Landschaftsbilder, die Rhythmen archaischer Riten, den Duft nach römischen Wein und immer wieder durchbrechende Nostalgie zu einer Erzählung aus einer Zeit längst verfallener Imperien. Die Figuren, die dabei auftreten geben von der Melancholie Kunde, die sich wie eine schwere Nebelschwade über das einfache Leben senkt. Zerfurcht von den rohen Versen ihres kargen Alltags hämmern sie ihre schlichten Rhythmen an vereinzelten Stellen im Gleichklang aus der amorphen Wüstenkulisse heraus. Immer wieder von den Wogen der See umspült tönen ihre Stimmen aus dem Wulst vergilbter Erinnerungen empor.

Wir werden hineingezogen in die Klänge, die der Schlund Poseidons ausspuckt und sehen »abends auf Tauris« ein barbarisches Ritual, das in einem wilden Trinkgelage entschläft. Und wir finden am Ende »in diese Zeit« zurück, um inmitten einer diffusen Hektik, die »diese Zeit« prägt, einen letzten sehnsuchtsschwangeren Blick nach Wien zu werfen, wo die Welt bekanntlich immer noch ein bisserl später untergeht.

Das Streichquartett entstand 2010–2011 und wurde 2014 revidiert. Das Werk wurde mit dem Kompositionspreis, ausgeschrieben von der Jeunesse, dem Hugo Wolf Quartett und der Alban-Berg-Stiftung, ausgezeichnet.

INSTRUMENTATION:
2 violins, viola, violoncello

DURATION:
17 minutes