Friday - 1:00

Offrande

Cello and Organ (2014)** US Premiere
Eric Choate | Organ ~ Doug Machiz | Violoncello

"Offrande is a gift to Marianna Karttunen and Nicolas Saint-Bris, and was performed at their wedding ceremony at the Saint-Denis church in Amboise in July 2015 by Tuija Hakkila and Anssi Karttunen.

As Marianna is my friend Anssi's daughter, it was only natural to write the piece for organ and cello.

The material for this piece comes directly from the second movement, "Dome," of Maan varjot (Shadows of the Earth) for organ and orchestra (2013).

"Dome" is a quiet, color-shifting contem­plation of the organ registers, and it's for this peaceful, intimate character that I chose it for this piece. The organ's hori­zontal textures made it possible to weave the cello line into the music.

In Offrande, the cello colors are constantly changing, and the fragile and intense textures alternate fluidly, while for the organ I imagined three combi­nations of registers with different characters used successively, named mat, brilliant and solo. I leave the choice of registers to the organist and their knowledge of the unique and specific instrument on which they play."

Kaija Saariaho

Frises

Violin and Electronics (2011)
Kevin Rogers | Violin ~ Bruce Bennett | Electronics

I. Frise jaune
II. Frise de fleurs
III. Pavage
IV. Frise grise

"Frises was born of violinist Richard Schmoucler’s request who told me his idea of combining different works around Bach’s second partita for solo violin, partic­u­larly in relation to the last part, the Chaconne. He asked me to compose a piece to be performed after Bach’s Chaconne and start it with the note that ends this second partita movement, the D.

My piece has four parts. I focused in each of them on the idea of one histor­ical ostinato variation form, using as starting point carillon, passacaglia, ground bass and chaconne. There are four variations around a theme, a harmonic process or other musical parameter.

To expand the ideas and possi­bil­ities of the instrument, I added an electronic dimension to the work. According to its character, each part has a different processing. In general and in accordance with the score, prepared sound materials are set off by the musician during the piece. These materials are completed by real-time transfor­mations of the violin sounds.

My aim in composing this piece was to create a rich work for violin with four very different and inde­pendent parts. The first part, “Frise jaune”, is a prelude, a flexible impro­vi­sation around a constant D, coloured by harmonics and the electronic part consisting of bell sounds. This part is also inspired by the idea of « carillon », a contin­uous melodic variation.

The second part, “Frise de fleurs”, is based on a harmony created on a ground bass. Sequences of successive chords are gradually enriched before opening to achieve a more free and lyrical devel­opment.

The third part, “Pavage” is inspired by transfor­mations of a source material by a mathe­mat­ical process where a frieze is a filling of a line or a band by a geometric figure without holes or overflow, like the paving . But I do not work in the sense of perfect symmetry - as with the cobblestones of a patterned ground - rather to create continual metamorphosis, in the sprit of some MC Escher’s images, though less consistently.

The last part, “Frise grise”, is like a strange procession, solemn, fragile, but at the same time solved. The idea of passacaglia is here realized with slow triplets, the constant accom­pa­niment of the left hand pizzicati on three strings, while the melody is evolving on the fourth which is not part of the accom­pa­niment. The thematic material evolves descending slowly from E - the highest string - to G - the fourth string. The music finally reaches the initial D in double stop which take us back to the beginning of the piece.

The titles are inspired by the mathe­mat­ical ideas mentioned above but also by Odilon Redon’s painted friezes which I saw recently in an exhi­bition dedicated to his work; espe­cially the Yellow Frieze, Frieze of Flowers and Gray Frieze.

Frises was composed for and dedicated to Richard Schmoucler, and commissioned by the Borusan Art Centre, Istanbul."

Kaija Saariaho
2012

Cloud Trio

Violin, Viola, Cello (2009)* West Coast Premiere
Otis Harriel | Violin ~ Mitso Floor | Viola ~ Doug Machiz | Violoncello

I.
II.
III.
IV.

"A string trio is a fasci­nating ensemble. Even if its instru­ments come from the same family it magnifies the indi­vidual characters of each. When writing the trio, I was surprised how different it was to writing for a string quartet.

In this piece, the three instru­ments all have different tasks and functions, they represent very different aspects of string playing. These tasks are sometimes very concrete: the violin tends to behave as an echo or rever­ber­ation, the viola creates new clouds next to the existing ones and the cello often has a function of a shadow to the upper instru­mental lines.

My ideas for this piece are about common textures; how to create one coherent – still complex and detailed – with indi­vidual lines.

The four sections of the piece have their own colours and characters, and I leave it to the listener to imagine what kinds of clouds were their sources of inspi­ration.

Why Cloud Trio? When composing this piece in the French Alps (Les Arcs), watching the big sky above mountains I realized once again how rich a metaphor a natural element can be: its state or shape is so recog­nizable, and yet it is always varied and rich in detail.

Cloud Trio is written for and dedicated to the Zebra Trio.""

Kaija Saariaho. Paris, May 14th, 2010

Nymphéa

String Quartet and Electronics (1987)
Friction Quartet ~ Bruce Bennett | Electronics

"In Nymphéa (Water lily, 1987) for string quartet and electronics, my aim was to broaden the colours of string instru­ments and create music by contrasting limpid, delicate textures and violent, shattering masses of sound.

The basis of the harmonic structure is provided by cello sounds that I analysed with the computer, through the use of some personal computer programs. The musical material is going through rhythmic and melodic transfor­mations as the motifs are gradually converted from a trill into arpeggios, or unisono rhythms into multi­layered micropolyphony. The electronic component of the piece consists of live transfor­mations of the string quartet's sounds in the concert.

Some images that evolved in my mind while composing: the symmetric structure of a water lily, yielding as it floats on the water, transforming. Different inter­pre­tations of the same image in different dimensions; a one-dimen­sional surface with its colours, shapes, and, on the other hand, different materials that can be sensed, forms, dimensions, a white water lily feeding from the under­water mud.

A poem by Arseny Tarkovsky – filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky's father – also became a part of the sonic material during the compostion. It appears gradually, first in separate phonems whispered by players, adding thus a vocal color to the palette of string sounds:

Now Summer is gone
And might never have been.
In the sunshine it's warm,
But there has to be more.

It all came to pass,
All fell into my hands
Like a five-petalled leaf,
But there has to be more.

Nothing evil was lost,
Nothing good was in vain,
All ablaze with clear light
But there has to be more.

Life gathered me up
Safe under it's wing,
My luck always held,
But there has to be more.

Not a leaf was burned up
Not a twig ever snapped
Clean as glass is the day
But there has to be more.

(Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair)"

Kaija Saariaho

Terra Memoria

String Quartet (2006)
Friction Quartet

"Terra Memoria is my second piece for string quartet, the first being Nymphéa which was written in 1987.

Twenty years have passed since Nymphea and my musical thinking has evolved much in that time, but my initial interest in string instru­ments has remained as vivid as ever. I love the richness and sensi­tivity of the string sound and, in spite of my spare contri­bution to the genre, I feel when writing for a string quartet that I'm entering into the intimate core of musical commu­ni­cation.

The piece is dedicated "for those departed". Some thoughts about this: we continue remem­bering the people who are no longer with us; the material - their life - is "complete", nothing will be added to it. Those of us who are left behind are constantly reminded of our expe­riences together: our feelings continue to change about different aspects of their person­ality, certain memories keep on haunting us in our dreams. Even after many years, some of these memories change, some remain clear flashes which we can relive.

These thoughts brought me to treat the musical material in a certain manner; some aspects of it go through several distinctive transfor­mations, whereas some remain nearly unchanged, clearly recog­nizable.

The title Terra Memoria refers to two words which are full of rich asso­ci­ations: to earth and memory. Here earth refers to my material, and memory to the way I'm working on it."

Kaija Saariaho