Available programme notes in English
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A>K : Breaths | Champ-contrechamp | Contretemps | Dark side | Der Lauf des Lebens
Breaths
2019
for piano
duration : 10 mm
Creation : October 20th 2019, Transit Festival (Leuven) by Nicolas Hodges
Respirations, the piano that breathes, sometimes asthmatic, sometimes breathless, sometimes out of breath, sometimes missing breaths, sometimes forgetting to breathe, chokes itself, tries to catch its breath. It’s the paradox of this piece, to make an instrument breathe, that in itself has nothing to do with breath at all.
Champ-Contrechamp
2010
for piano and ensemble
duration : 15 mm
Creation 20th August 2011 BBC Proms - London - London Sinfonietta conducted by David Atherton with Nicolas Hodges, piano. Commissionned by the BBC Radio.
Champ-Contrechamp (Shot/Reverse-shot) is an technical term coming from cinematographic language. It means, for example, that during a dialogue, the camera alternatively shows at first one character and a second one who is looking at the first one. We pass without transition from one to the other. Similarly "Concerto for piano and ensemble" is about showing 2 points of views : one of the pianist one and the other of the ensemble. Sometimes the soloist creates the sound space in which the ensemble can fuse, and sometimes the ensemble creates the sound place that takes in the soloist. It's a game of passive resistance and active resistance between the two parts. The piano "is speaking" like a "recitativo", the ensemble seems to respond and all of a sudden misinterpretations between them create a tension which is resolved in different ways. For the first time, while I was writing the piece, I wished to emphasise the contrasts between a minimalism of a great fragility and a booming maximalism. It is another champ-contrechamp. G.A
Listen to Nicolas Hodges talking about the piece
Contretemps
2006
for soprano and ensemble
duration : 20 minutes
Creation : August 29th 2006, Salburger Festpiele - Ensemble Klangforum Wien conducted by Hans Zender, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, soprano - Commission by the Salzburg festival.
Contretemps - Seesaw - Parlando - Tetter-Totter
Klangforum Wien - Donatienne Michel-Dansac - Uli Fussenegger - Emilio Pomarico - Sylvain Cambreling CD Kairos 0013222KAI
« Sudden, unexpected Event, which comes to compromise the realization of an intention, a project. »
The piece appears as a fight.
Fight between the voice and the instruments, fight between sequences, fight between fragments parasites.
Nothing can take place normally and up to the end.
Always there will be a hindrance, a misappropriation, a denial of what has just been heard.
The linear speech is damaged for the benefit of one « spiral », which makes turn the musical elements, them made be in confrontation itself, them made divert, puts them in one « to become unexpected ».
In this study on the intermittent movement, the fragments working as « resistance » make divert the listening, create wrong tracks, before themselves to be taken in this unstable labyrinth.
The position of the voice, sometimes in the middle of the excitement, sometimes in the edge, sometimes alone, is only increasing the confusion.
My bet by writing this score, was to release a maximum of energy thanks to the future of this form ceaselessly torn and shaken, while creating the illusion of a plausible dramaturgy.
An image accompanied me during the writing of « Contretemps », it is a painting of Paul Klee : Vor den Blitz.
G. Aperghis
Publisher : Durand Salabert Eschig
Dark side
2004
for mezzo-soprano and ensemble
According to L’Orestie of Eschyle - French translation François Regnault - German translation Sacha Zilberfarb
Creation : March 15th 2004 - Megaron, Athens - With Marianne Pousseur, Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Jonathan Nott.
Commissionned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain
It is about an hallucination in the present time, now, as if Klytemnestre old of three thousand years still rehashed the murder of her husband in a incoherent manner, the shared loving wish, the interminable wait, the will of revenge: the ambivalence between love and hate.
His double language lost nothing of its vigour.
Leaving from there, I wanted nothing to explain the behaviour of this figure, I only tried to put abreast imaginary instants of her life.
It is the musical building which dictated me the dramatic of this kind of nightmare. It is like a building with facets in contrast, without visible continuity, which tries to open mental areas which seem to belong different ladders.
It is therefore about a series of fragments forming a kind of heterogeneous rosary which once aspires “égrainé” to find its coherence.
The singer appraise in these musical areas must pass from a vocal behaviour to other one, without delay, as a thought being made over instant. G.A.
Complete text of Dark Side here.
Detailed instrumentation : mezzo-soprano solo, 2 flûtes/flûtes piccolo, 2 cors anglais/hautbois, 2 clarinettes en si bémol, 2 bassons, 2 cors en fa, trompette en ut, tuba, 3 percussions, piano, 3 violons, 2 altos, 2 violoncelles, contrebasse.
Publisher : Durand
Der Lauf der Lebens
2017-2018 - for the Klangforum Wien, the Neue Vocalsolisten Suttgart and Emilio Pomarico
2 flutes (also piccolo and Bass fl), hautbois, 2 Clarinets (also Bass Cl), Bassoon, Saxophon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombon, Accordion, Harp, 2 pianos, 2 percussions, 3 violins, 1 viola, 2 cello, double bass
Soprano Collorature, Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, Bass
Duration : 1 hour
Creation : September 2nd 2020, KammerMusiksaal, Berliner Philharmonie, Ensemble Klangforum Wien, The Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Emilio Pomarico.
« Der lauf des Lebens, the life stream.
On the main road – drive together in threes, in pairs, suddenly a walking crowd, figures, familiar – strange, some masked, among the people, then next to them, then alone. Crossings, feasts, life goes on, we move on, make music together, sometimes intimate sometimes extravagant. Joys, fears, thoughts, panics follow one another and we always advance accompanied by the deceased who fly around us, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, good or bad omens, we continue solitary or make block, we climb the mountain, our music accompanies us day and night, arrive at the summit, then….»
Georges Aperghis – février 2018
Composition commission by Musik der Jarhunderte and Klangforum Wien funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
Publisher : Durand Salabert Eschig
2019
for piano
duration : 10 mm
Creation : October 20th 2019, Transit Festival (Leuven) by Nicolas Hodges
Respirations, the piano that breathes, sometimes asthmatic, sometimes breathless, sometimes out of breath, sometimes missing breaths, sometimes forgetting to breathe, chokes itself, tries to catch its breath. It’s the paradox of this piece, to make an instrument breathe, that in itself has nothing to do with breath at all.
Champ-Contrechamp
2010
for piano and ensemble
duration : 15 mm
Creation 20th August 2011 BBC Proms - London - London Sinfonietta conducted by David Atherton with Nicolas Hodges, piano. Commissionned by the BBC Radio.
Champ-Contrechamp (Shot/Reverse-shot) is an technical term coming from cinematographic language. It means, for example, that during a dialogue, the camera alternatively shows at first one character and a second one who is looking at the first one. We pass without transition from one to the other. Similarly "Concerto for piano and ensemble" is about showing 2 points of views : one of the pianist one and the other of the ensemble. Sometimes the soloist creates the sound space in which the ensemble can fuse, and sometimes the ensemble creates the sound place that takes in the soloist. It's a game of passive resistance and active resistance between the two parts. The piano "is speaking" like a "recitativo", the ensemble seems to respond and all of a sudden misinterpretations between them create a tension which is resolved in different ways. For the first time, while I was writing the piece, I wished to emphasise the contrasts between a minimalism of a great fragility and a booming maximalism. It is another champ-contrechamp. G.A
Listen to Nicolas Hodges talking about the piece
Contretemps
2006
for soprano and ensemble
duration : 20 minutes
Creation : August 29th 2006, Salburger Festpiele - Ensemble Klangforum Wien conducted by Hans Zender, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, soprano - Commission by the Salzburg festival.
Contretemps - Seesaw - Parlando - Tetter-Totter
Klangforum Wien - Donatienne Michel-Dansac - Uli Fussenegger - Emilio Pomarico - Sylvain Cambreling CD Kairos 0013222KAI
« Sudden, unexpected Event, which comes to compromise the realization of an intention, a project. »
The piece appears as a fight.
Fight between the voice and the instruments, fight between sequences, fight between fragments parasites.
Nothing can take place normally and up to the end.
Always there will be a hindrance, a misappropriation, a denial of what has just been heard.
The linear speech is damaged for the benefit of one « spiral », which makes turn the musical elements, them made be in confrontation itself, them made divert, puts them in one « to become unexpected ».
In this study on the intermittent movement, the fragments working as « resistance » make divert the listening, create wrong tracks, before themselves to be taken in this unstable labyrinth.
The position of the voice, sometimes in the middle of the excitement, sometimes in the edge, sometimes alone, is only increasing the confusion.
My bet by writing this score, was to release a maximum of energy thanks to the future of this form ceaselessly torn and shaken, while creating the illusion of a plausible dramaturgy.
An image accompanied me during the writing of « Contretemps », it is a painting of Paul Klee : Vor den Blitz.
G. Aperghis
Publisher : Durand Salabert Eschig
Dark side
2004
for mezzo-soprano and ensemble
According to L’Orestie of Eschyle - French translation François Regnault - German translation Sacha Zilberfarb
Creation : March 15th 2004 - Megaron, Athens - With Marianne Pousseur, Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Jonathan Nott.
Commissionned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain
It is about an hallucination in the present time, now, as if Klytemnestre old of three thousand years still rehashed the murder of her husband in a incoherent manner, the shared loving wish, the interminable wait, the will of revenge: the ambivalence between love and hate.
His double language lost nothing of its vigour.
Leaving from there, I wanted nothing to explain the behaviour of this figure, I only tried to put abreast imaginary instants of her life.
It is the musical building which dictated me the dramatic of this kind of nightmare. It is like a building with facets in contrast, without visible continuity, which tries to open mental areas which seem to belong different ladders.
It is therefore about a series of fragments forming a kind of heterogeneous rosary which once aspires “égrainé” to find its coherence.
The singer appraise in these musical areas must pass from a vocal behaviour to other one, without delay, as a thought being made over instant. G.A.
Complete text of Dark Side here.
Detailed instrumentation : mezzo-soprano solo, 2 flûtes/flûtes piccolo, 2 cors anglais/hautbois, 2 clarinettes en si bémol, 2 bassons, 2 cors en fa, trompette en ut, tuba, 3 percussions, piano, 3 violons, 2 altos, 2 violoncelles, contrebasse.
Publisher : Durand
Der Lauf der Lebens
2017-2018 - for the Klangforum Wien, the Neue Vocalsolisten Suttgart and Emilio Pomarico
2 flutes (also piccolo and Bass fl), hautbois, 2 Clarinets (also Bass Cl), Bassoon, Saxophon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombon, Accordion, Harp, 2 pianos, 2 percussions, 3 violins, 1 viola, 2 cello, double bass
Soprano Collorature, Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, Bass
Duration : 1 hour
Creation : September 2nd 2020, KammerMusiksaal, Berliner Philharmonie, Ensemble Klangforum Wien, The Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Emilio Pomarico.
« Der lauf des Lebens, the life stream.
On the main road – drive together in threes, in pairs, suddenly a walking crowd, figures, familiar – strange, some masked, among the people, then next to them, then alone. Crossings, feasts, life goes on, we move on, make music together, sometimes intimate sometimes extravagant. Joys, fears, thoughts, panics follow one another and we always advance accompanied by the deceased who fly around us, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, good or bad omens, we continue solitary or make block, we climb the mountain, our music accompanies us day and night, arrive at the summit, then….»
Georges Aperghis – février 2018
Composition commission by Musik der Jarhunderte and Klangforum Wien funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
Publisher : Durand Salabert Eschig
L>Q : Le corps à corps | Les secrets élémentaires | Parcours | Parlando | Pubs-Reklamen
Le corps à corps
1978
For a percussionniste and his zarb
Duration : 10 minutes
Création : August 6th 1979, Sainte-Baume festival by Jean-Pierre Drouet
The percussionist is at the same time the storyteller of an epic history and the central figure of the room. In the single combat of invention is reflected that of the musician with the instrument and with its own breath.
This piece is devoted to Jean-Pierre Drouet.
Georges Aperghis
On the web by Jean-Pierre Drouet here, but also by Vanessa Porter
Les secrets élémentaires
1998, for Vincent Leterme
For piano
Duration : 14 minutes
Création : Clermont-Ferrand on February 1st 2000 by Vincent Leterme
This work was written as a continuous variation based on a single material whose two forms, melodic- rhythmic and synchronic-diachronic, change within each piece as well as within the collection as a whole.
Les secrets élémentaires announced by the piano does not refer to a hidden background or a romantic confession that it would have just translated. It is what is written; and like Roland Barthes said for the piano of Schumann, “the body that beats”. As above all, the pianist is considered to be having ten fingers of “independent persecution” within a “polyphony of colours”.
This even reduces the romanticism that the piano carries within itself: “How to play with the colours of the piano that one heard as a child, how to take these passionately (and so 'romantically') to turn it into wallpaper, some flattened version of painting of which one can now only discern a few details. In brief, playing the piano in a less cataclysmic, less hysterical manner than is often found in contemporary piano, and being able to play like a child with these three chords of Chopin which moved me so much. I hear in his Mikrokozmosz Les secrets élémentaires. Of the study of the body and organs. More than the macrocosm of the mind, the Big Play is played in details.
Interview by Peter Szendy
CD Zig-Zag Territoires "Musique de chamber" n° 3760009290174 (recording by Vincent Leterme) & CD NEOS 10912 "Works for piano" (recording Nicolas Hodges)
Parcours
Music by Georges Aperghis adapted and interpreted by Jean-Pierre Drouet on Claudine Brahem's musical machines. Parcours on the web.
About 40 minutes
Following exhibitions of my musical machines, a feeling was expressed by both the visitors and the hosting parties to not only enjoy manipulating the machines but to see and hear them in their professional context.
I thus had the idea of making a « show within the exhibition » constituted of small pieces by Georges Aperghis.
Several of these pieces are the origins of the exhibited machines.
The rest have been adapted by Jean-Pierre Drouet for the machines already created in various different contexts.
Claudine Brahem
« Parcours » is a composite piece constructed of excerpts from « Conversations », « Enumérations », « Tour de Babel » and « Eclipse Partielle ».
In each of these individual pieces, I had composed sequences of « théâtre musical » for the sound-machines invented by Claudine Brahem after preliminary research with her.
The coming and going of ideas leads one to imagine these « sound-objects » not only in terms of the sound they produce but also their visual aspect and those of the performer playing them.
With my old compagnon and friend Jean-Pierre Drouet we tried to imagine this « journey », from one sound machine to another, from one sequence to another, a sort of game which is the tally of our work together, our journey.
Georges Aperghis
Tricycle - excerpt Eclipse Partielle
Cello à caisse - excerpt Enumérations
Porte des fantômes - excerpt Enumérations
Charette de la promenade - excerpt Enumérations
Baptême par l’eau et par le feu - excerpt de Conversations
Machine à intempéries - excerpt Enumérations
Waldfeutel - excerpt de Tour de Babel
Polystyrène - excerpt Enumérations
Cornet - excerpt de Tour de Babel
Table d’énumérations - excerpt Enumérations
Fontaine
Vièle - excerpt Conversations
Clacquoirs de bois - excerpt Conversations
Clacquoirs de métal - excerpt Conversations
Ses muscles - excerpt Conversations
Parlando
2009, for Uli Fussenegger
For double bass solo
Création : July 19th 2010, 45 Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt, Orangerie, Uli Fussenegger.
Parlando : the double bass speaks. This piece wrote specifically for Klangforum Wien double bass payer Uli Fussenegger, makes clear just how much Aperghis is abel to savor the extremes of each individual instrument while developing his own form of musical narration using its specific abilities : a discourse full of repetitions, new beginnings and interruptions which either just appear or run around a « passage » at a distance of minimal intervals; a language of pouding uncertainty, nervous interactions or pleading (all the way to whimpering). The fact that long stretches of the score are notated on two staves simultaneously only hints at the virtuosic demands which the composer makes of this performer here. In addition to the fact that the bass is frequently chased up to surprisingly high regions, this work involves tricky changes in tone production and also uses the playing technique of « taping » - familiar above all from jazz - so as to let contemporary music reclaim « grooviness » quasi for itself.
Patrick Hahn
CD Kairos 13222 - 2012 - Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Uli Fussenegger, Klangforum Wien, Emilio Pomarico . Sylvain Cambreling
Pubs - Reklamen
2000-2015
Cycle for soprano solo sung by Valérie Philippin and Donatienne Michel-Dansac
Duration : 20 minutes
1 Corn flakes
2 Detergent
3 Tooth paste
4 Soft drinks
5 Hydrating cream
6 Video game
7 Shampoo
It is about the creation of the first exercise book of advertisements (7). That in our everyday life we are surrounded with images and with sounds, with announcements which suggest us filling our desires for more happiness and comfort but also creating desires that we do not still have, it is an obvious fact.
Each advertisement emphasizes a different product (toothpaste, vitamins, drinks, shampoo etc.)
These works suggest transposing the contents of each advertisement thanks to a specific vocal treatment which create a tension between the advertising texts and the musical depiction. They are a pretext to allow me to continue to explore the voice.
Georges Aperghis
To discover those short pieces, listen to Alla Breve, a radio program made by the journalist Anne Montaron
1978
For a percussionniste and his zarb
Duration : 10 minutes
Création : August 6th 1979, Sainte-Baume festival by Jean-Pierre Drouet
The percussionist is at the same time the storyteller of an epic history and the central figure of the room. In the single combat of invention is reflected that of the musician with the instrument and with its own breath.
This piece is devoted to Jean-Pierre Drouet.
Georges Aperghis
On the web by Jean-Pierre Drouet here, but also by Vanessa Porter
Les secrets élémentaires
1998, for Vincent Leterme
For piano
Duration : 14 minutes
Création : Clermont-Ferrand on February 1st 2000 by Vincent Leterme
This work was written as a continuous variation based on a single material whose two forms, melodic- rhythmic and synchronic-diachronic, change within each piece as well as within the collection as a whole.
Les secrets élémentaires announced by the piano does not refer to a hidden background or a romantic confession that it would have just translated. It is what is written; and like Roland Barthes said for the piano of Schumann, “the body that beats”. As above all, the pianist is considered to be having ten fingers of “independent persecution” within a “polyphony of colours”.
This even reduces the romanticism that the piano carries within itself: “How to play with the colours of the piano that one heard as a child, how to take these passionately (and so 'romantically') to turn it into wallpaper, some flattened version of painting of which one can now only discern a few details. In brief, playing the piano in a less cataclysmic, less hysterical manner than is often found in contemporary piano, and being able to play like a child with these three chords of Chopin which moved me so much. I hear in his Mikrokozmosz Les secrets élémentaires. Of the study of the body and organs. More than the macrocosm of the mind, the Big Play is played in details.
Interview by Peter Szendy
CD Zig-Zag Territoires "Musique de chamber" n° 3760009290174 (recording by Vincent Leterme) & CD NEOS 10912 "Works for piano" (recording Nicolas Hodges)
Parcours
Music by Georges Aperghis adapted and interpreted by Jean-Pierre Drouet on Claudine Brahem's musical machines. Parcours on the web.
About 40 minutes
Following exhibitions of my musical machines, a feeling was expressed by both the visitors and the hosting parties to not only enjoy manipulating the machines but to see and hear them in their professional context.
I thus had the idea of making a « show within the exhibition » constituted of small pieces by Georges Aperghis.
Several of these pieces are the origins of the exhibited machines.
The rest have been adapted by Jean-Pierre Drouet for the machines already created in various different contexts.
Claudine Brahem
« Parcours » is a composite piece constructed of excerpts from « Conversations », « Enumérations », « Tour de Babel » and « Eclipse Partielle ».
In each of these individual pieces, I had composed sequences of « théâtre musical » for the sound-machines invented by Claudine Brahem after preliminary research with her.
The coming and going of ideas leads one to imagine these « sound-objects » not only in terms of the sound they produce but also their visual aspect and those of the performer playing them.
With my old compagnon and friend Jean-Pierre Drouet we tried to imagine this « journey », from one sound machine to another, from one sequence to another, a sort of game which is the tally of our work together, our journey.
Georges Aperghis
Tricycle - excerpt Eclipse Partielle
Cello à caisse - excerpt Enumérations
Porte des fantômes - excerpt Enumérations
Charette de la promenade - excerpt Enumérations
Baptême par l’eau et par le feu - excerpt de Conversations
Machine à intempéries - excerpt Enumérations
Waldfeutel - excerpt de Tour de Babel
Polystyrène - excerpt Enumérations
Cornet - excerpt de Tour de Babel
Table d’énumérations - excerpt Enumérations
Fontaine
Vièle - excerpt Conversations
Clacquoirs de bois - excerpt Conversations
Clacquoirs de métal - excerpt Conversations
Ses muscles - excerpt Conversations
Parlando
2009, for Uli Fussenegger
For double bass solo
Création : July 19th 2010, 45 Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt, Orangerie, Uli Fussenegger.
Parlando : the double bass speaks. This piece wrote specifically for Klangforum Wien double bass payer Uli Fussenegger, makes clear just how much Aperghis is abel to savor the extremes of each individual instrument while developing his own form of musical narration using its specific abilities : a discourse full of repetitions, new beginnings and interruptions which either just appear or run around a « passage » at a distance of minimal intervals; a language of pouding uncertainty, nervous interactions or pleading (all the way to whimpering). The fact that long stretches of the score are notated on two staves simultaneously only hints at the virtuosic demands which the composer makes of this performer here. In addition to the fact that the bass is frequently chased up to surprisingly high regions, this work involves tricky changes in tone production and also uses the playing technique of « taping » - familiar above all from jazz - so as to let contemporary music reclaim « grooviness » quasi for itself.
Patrick Hahn
CD Kairos 13222 - 2012 - Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Uli Fussenegger, Klangforum Wien, Emilio Pomarico . Sylvain Cambreling
Pubs - Reklamen
2000-2015
Cycle for soprano solo sung by Valérie Philippin and Donatienne Michel-Dansac
Duration : 20 minutes
1 Corn flakes
2 Detergent
3 Tooth paste
4 Soft drinks
5 Hydrating cream
6 Video game
7 Shampoo
It is about the creation of the first exercise book of advertisements (7). That in our everyday life we are surrounded with images and with sounds, with announcements which suggest us filling our desires for more happiness and comfort but also creating desires that we do not still have, it is an obvious fact.
Each advertisement emphasizes a different product (toothpaste, vitamins, drinks, shampoo etc.)
These works suggest transposing the contents of each advertisement thanks to a specific vocal treatment which create a tension between the advertising texts and the musical depiction. They are a pretext to allow me to continue to explore the voice.
Georges Aperghis
To discover those short pieces, listen to Alla Breve, a radio program made by the journalist Anne Montaron
R>Z : Retrouvailles | The messenger | Seesaw | Shot in the dark | Situations | Teeter-totter | Wild romance
Retrouvailles
2013
for 2 percussionist/actors
Duration : 9 minutes
Creation : Witten festival, 26 avril 2013 par Christian Dierstein et Richard Dubelski
2 men meet,
we see they already know each other.
Fragments of the everyday life gesture (to bang in the back, to shake hands, to drink in the name of common memories, etc).
Syllables and musical phonemes intelligible for them but not for the audience.
This short performance is a construction of situations that seem real but which lose their reality because of voice processing and cutting gesture
Georges Aperghis
To order the CD/DVD (Witten festival 2013 edition), Write, Give a call or Send a fax at : Kulturforum Witten, Bergerstraße 25, 58452 Witten, Tel: 02302.581-2486, Fax: 02302.581-2496, [email protected]
The messenger
2019 - To Vanessa Porter
Duration : 10 minutes
Creation : 20 septembre 2020, Kölner Philharmonie by Vanessa Porter
A messenger coming from nowhere :
...distress calls often repeated...
...no assistance...
...no one come...
...distress signals ignored...
...they were very little more than voices...
...several days adrift...
...I was silent for a long time. Now I want to tell you...
Georges Aperghis
SeeSaw
2008
for 2 fl, 2 cl, sax, 2 pnos, 2 vl, 2 vla, 2 cello, 1 cb
Duration : 10 minutes
Publisher : Durand Salabert
Commission : Felicitas & Matteo Bürgler for the Klangforum Wien at the of occasion their 25th anniversary
Creation : February 4th 2010, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam by Klangforum Wien and Sylvain Cambreling.
CD KAIROS - 0013222KAI
Rocker, whose movement is based on the laws of balance « lifting, lowering and reverse play».
Game, scale system of maintaining a balance of power between two trends based alternately on one or the other.
Scale system which is to demote after advancing to undo after.
Situations
2013
for 23 soloist
Duration of an hour
Creation : October 20th 2013, Donaueschingen festival, Klangforum Wien conducted by Emilio Pomarico - lightings by Philipp Harnoncourt.
Listen to Georges Aperghis.
Festival short documentary at the occasion ot the creation HERE.
Situations is a concert piece, a soirée musicale for the 24 musicians of Klangforum Wien. The work takes the form of a tryptich: the first part is an ensemble piece, put together by using fragments of diverse colour and contrasting contents, which are arranged sequentially or superimposed upon one another, so that changing polyphonies are constantly created.
At the end of the first part, the music becomes seemingly more individual; we are now faced with 24 solo players – which form the second part of the triptych. It is a mosaic of solo pieces, duets, trios and quartets that either stand by themselves or are performed simultaneously. The musicians move around the stage at will, at times keeping to themselves and playing on their own, or entering into a musical dialogue with others. Some play and sing at the same time, others might pick up a book from which they’ll read a passage aloud. We no longer attend a concert, but participate in a soirée where the musicians seem to have forgotten that there is an audience that watches and listens.
This, too, is a fragmentary construct: outlines of the interpreters’ musical portraits merge or answer each other like in a wide-ranging conversation. Those who are currently not playing, listen to their colleagues, either sitting in an easy chair or on a sofa; at times they will participate in the music that evolves at that moment, at others they might comment, or they are simply present, as if they were lost in their own thoughts.
This organised chaos gradually becomes more structured and leads to a massive movement which constitutes the third part, an ensemble piece, which refers back to the individual voices we heard in the second part, reinforcing them and allowing them to echo throughout the whole ensemble before the piece culminates in an erratic and piercing tutti.
As you can see, the piece changes shape three times. In the second movement there appears to be something like an enlargement effect, as if one was approaching the musicians in order to get as close as possible to their personality. Gradually abandoning my original idea of writing a concerto grosso finally led me to this solution.
Georges Aperghis
To learn more about this piece, go to the analysis of Eleni Ralli on our page TXT.
Shot in the dark
2010-2011, for the International Contemporary Ensemble
for 2 fl, 2 cl, horn, trumpet, perc, voice (sop.), piano, 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and double bass
Duration : 16 minutes
Creation : May 24th 2012, Columbia Miller Theatre, 2960 Broadway New York, Ice Ensemble with Tony Arnold and Ludovic Morlot
Publisher : Durand
An impossible portrait of a fluctuating woman (instrument & voice) who slides from one state of consciousness to another, like somebody who is looking for their way through the dark, like an endless derivation, pulling the instrumental ensemble into its vocal labyrinth.
Sequences appear, like sonic images. The voice traverses these spaces, provokes them or undergoes them, or plays with them in a versatile way. No longer can you tell whether it's the voice or the instruments that lead the dance. One seems to be following the errand ways of the other, through contrasting fragments that succeed each other in a non-linear fashion.
Georges Aperghis translated by Andreas Waldburg-Wolfegg
To discover the piece, see this archive proposed Ice Ensemble
The messenger
2019 - To Vanessa Porter
Duration : 10 minutes
Creation : 20 septembre 2020, Kölner Philharmonie by Vanessa Porter
A messenger coming from nowhere :
...distress calls often repeated...
...no assistance...
...no one come...
...distress signals ignored...
...they were very little more than voices...
...several days adrift...
...I was silent for a long time. Now I want to tell you...
Georges Aperghis
Teeter-Totter
2006
for 2 fl, 2 cl, sax, horn, 2 pnos, 2 percs, 2 vcl and 1 db
Duration : 15 minutes
Publisher : Durand Salabert
Creation : October 18th 2008, commissioned/performed at the Donaueschinger Musiktage by Klangforum Wien and Emilio Pomarico.
CD KAIROS - 0013222KAI
Rocker, whose movement is based on the laws of balance « lifting, lowering and reverse play».
Game, scale system of maintaining a balance of power between two trends based alternately on one or the other.
Scale system which is to demote after advancing to undo after.
Wild romance
2005 - for Talea
pour soprano et ensemble
Durée : 16 minutes
Création : October 23rd 2015, Transit festival (Leuven), Talea Ensemble, Donatienne Michel-Dansac and James Baker.
In this piece the ensemble is playing the role of a revealing. It provokes the memory of the voice. That one recovers fragments of a lost memory, remembers surely painful to believe the extreme tensions existing between the singer and the ensemble. So no precise history, only splinters of a lost memory : we can imagine that something very violent occurred in olden days, something that we’ve been quick to forget. So during the whole piece we assist to the gradual emergence of sound images which try to reconstruct the puzzle of a memory. This memory will slowly disappeared again, until the silence.
Georges Aperghis
Georges Aperghis
Vous pouvez consulter un pdf de la partition publiée aux éditions Durand ici, via la site Isuu
2013
for 2 percussionist/actors
Duration : 9 minutes
Creation : Witten festival, 26 avril 2013 par Christian Dierstein et Richard Dubelski
2 men meet,
we see they already know each other.
Fragments of the everyday life gesture (to bang in the back, to shake hands, to drink in the name of common memories, etc).
Syllables and musical phonemes intelligible for them but not for the audience.
This short performance is a construction of situations that seem real but which lose their reality because of voice processing and cutting gesture
Georges Aperghis
To order the CD/DVD (Witten festival 2013 edition), Write, Give a call or Send a fax at : Kulturforum Witten, Bergerstraße 25, 58452 Witten, Tel: 02302.581-2486, Fax: 02302.581-2496, [email protected]
The messenger
2019 - To Vanessa Porter
Duration : 10 minutes
Creation : 20 septembre 2020, Kölner Philharmonie by Vanessa Porter
A messenger coming from nowhere :
...distress calls often repeated...
...no assistance...
...no one come...
...distress signals ignored...
...they were very little more than voices...
...several days adrift...
...I was silent for a long time. Now I want to tell you...
Georges Aperghis
SeeSaw
2008
for 2 fl, 2 cl, sax, 2 pnos, 2 vl, 2 vla, 2 cello, 1 cb
Duration : 10 minutes
Publisher : Durand Salabert
Commission : Felicitas & Matteo Bürgler for the Klangforum Wien at the of occasion their 25th anniversary
Creation : February 4th 2010, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam by Klangforum Wien and Sylvain Cambreling.
CD KAIROS - 0013222KAI
Rocker, whose movement is based on the laws of balance « lifting, lowering and reverse play».
Game, scale system of maintaining a balance of power between two trends based alternately on one or the other.
Scale system which is to demote after advancing to undo after.
Situations
2013
for 23 soloist
Duration of an hour
Creation : October 20th 2013, Donaueschingen festival, Klangforum Wien conducted by Emilio Pomarico - lightings by Philipp Harnoncourt.
Listen to Georges Aperghis.
Festival short documentary at the occasion ot the creation HERE.
Situations is a concert piece, a soirée musicale for the 24 musicians of Klangforum Wien. The work takes the form of a tryptich: the first part is an ensemble piece, put together by using fragments of diverse colour and contrasting contents, which are arranged sequentially or superimposed upon one another, so that changing polyphonies are constantly created.
At the end of the first part, the music becomes seemingly more individual; we are now faced with 24 solo players – which form the second part of the triptych. It is a mosaic of solo pieces, duets, trios and quartets that either stand by themselves or are performed simultaneously. The musicians move around the stage at will, at times keeping to themselves and playing on their own, or entering into a musical dialogue with others. Some play and sing at the same time, others might pick up a book from which they’ll read a passage aloud. We no longer attend a concert, but participate in a soirée where the musicians seem to have forgotten that there is an audience that watches and listens.
This, too, is a fragmentary construct: outlines of the interpreters’ musical portraits merge or answer each other like in a wide-ranging conversation. Those who are currently not playing, listen to their colleagues, either sitting in an easy chair or on a sofa; at times they will participate in the music that evolves at that moment, at others they might comment, or they are simply present, as if they were lost in their own thoughts.
This organised chaos gradually becomes more structured and leads to a massive movement which constitutes the third part, an ensemble piece, which refers back to the individual voices we heard in the second part, reinforcing them and allowing them to echo throughout the whole ensemble before the piece culminates in an erratic and piercing tutti.
As you can see, the piece changes shape three times. In the second movement there appears to be something like an enlargement effect, as if one was approaching the musicians in order to get as close as possible to their personality. Gradually abandoning my original idea of writing a concerto grosso finally led me to this solution.
Georges Aperghis
To learn more about this piece, go to the analysis of Eleni Ralli on our page TXT.
Shot in the dark
2010-2011, for the International Contemporary Ensemble
for 2 fl, 2 cl, horn, trumpet, perc, voice (sop.), piano, 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and double bass
Duration : 16 minutes
Creation : May 24th 2012, Columbia Miller Theatre, 2960 Broadway New York, Ice Ensemble with Tony Arnold and Ludovic Morlot
Publisher : Durand
An impossible portrait of a fluctuating woman (instrument & voice) who slides from one state of consciousness to another, like somebody who is looking for their way through the dark, like an endless derivation, pulling the instrumental ensemble into its vocal labyrinth.
Sequences appear, like sonic images. The voice traverses these spaces, provokes them or undergoes them, or plays with them in a versatile way. No longer can you tell whether it's the voice or the instruments that lead the dance. One seems to be following the errand ways of the other, through contrasting fragments that succeed each other in a non-linear fashion.
Georges Aperghis translated by Andreas Waldburg-Wolfegg
To discover the piece, see this archive proposed Ice Ensemble
The messenger
2019 - To Vanessa Porter
Duration : 10 minutes
Creation : 20 septembre 2020, Kölner Philharmonie by Vanessa Porter
A messenger coming from nowhere :
...distress calls often repeated...
...no assistance...
...no one come...
...distress signals ignored...
...they were very little more than voices...
...several days adrift...
...I was silent for a long time. Now I want to tell you...
Georges Aperghis
Teeter-Totter
2006
for 2 fl, 2 cl, sax, horn, 2 pnos, 2 percs, 2 vcl and 1 db
Duration : 15 minutes
Publisher : Durand Salabert
Creation : October 18th 2008, commissioned/performed at the Donaueschinger Musiktage by Klangforum Wien and Emilio Pomarico.
CD KAIROS - 0013222KAI
Rocker, whose movement is based on the laws of balance « lifting, lowering and reverse play».
Game, scale system of maintaining a balance of power between two trends based alternately on one or the other.
Scale system which is to demote after advancing to undo after.
Wild romance
2005 - for Talea
pour soprano et ensemble
Durée : 16 minutes
Création : October 23rd 2015, Transit festival (Leuven), Talea Ensemble, Donatienne Michel-Dansac and James Baker.
In this piece the ensemble is playing the role of a revealing. It provokes the memory of the voice. That one recovers fragments of a lost memory, remembers surely painful to believe the extreme tensions existing between the singer and the ensemble. So no precise history, only splinters of a lost memory : we can imagine that something very violent occurred in olden days, something that we’ve been quick to forget. So during the whole piece we assist to the gradual emergence of sound images which try to reconstruct the puzzle of a memory. This memory will slowly disappeared again, until the silence.
Georges Aperghis
Georges Aperghis
Vous pouvez consulter un pdf de la partition publiée aux éditions Durand ici, via la site Isuu