Friday - 7:30

Prelude

for Solo Piano (2007)
Dr. Daniel Pesca | Piano

“Prelude (2006) was composed for long-time collab­o­rator Tuija Hakkila as a devel­opment of the piano part of the song cycle Quatre instants (espe­cially its beginning, hence the title), which Tuija had premiered with soprano Karita Mattila in 2003. Much like the source work, Preludeexplores the passionate obsession for a pulsating idee fixe that never gets a release or reso­lution. The work is a ‘prelude’ also in exposing ideas of sustained rhythmical flow, idiomatic to the instrument, that Kaija explored further in her ulterior piano writing in chamber music works, and beyond.”

NoaNoa

for Flute and Electronics (1992)
Jessie Nucho | Flute ~ Bruce Bennett | Electronics

"NoaNoa (Fragrant, 1992) was born from the ideas I had for flute while writing my ballet music Maa. I wanted to write down, exag­gerate, even abuse certain flute manner­isms that had been haunting me for some years, and thus force myself to move onto something new.

Formally I exper­imented with an idea of devel­oping several elements simul­ta­ne­ously, first sequen­tially, then super­imposed on each other.

The title refers to a wood cut by Paul Gauguin called NoaNoa. It also refers to a travel diary of the same name, written by Gauguin during his visit to Tahiti in 1891-93. The fragments of phrases selected for the voice part in the piece come from this book.

NoaNoa is also a team work. Many details in the flute part were worked out with Camilla Hoitenga. The electronic part was developed under the super­vision of Jean-Baptiste Barrière and programmed by Xavier Chabot."

Kaija Saariaho

Mirrors

for Flute and Cello (1997)
Jessie Nucho | Flute ~ Natalie Raney | Violoncello

"Mirrors is a piece written origi­nally for the CD-Rom Prisma dedicated to my music. In the context of the CD-Rom, the user can build and play his own versions of Mirrors, by combining pre-defined fragments. Because written for this purpose, the piece is built in such a manner that it can be reconstructed in multiple versions. The fragments of the game are the passages separated with double bar.

The existing score is my own versions of Mirrors, but musicians are welcome to construct their versions of it. They should, anyway, try to follow the ideas I had about musical mirrors: there should be always a mirror in one or several of the following musical dimensions: rhythm, pitch, instru­mental gesture or timbre.

The mirror can be hori­zontal, between flute and cello (bars 4-5: rhythm mirror, bar 17: gesture, etc) or vertical (bars 57-58: timbre, bars 65-66: flute gesture, cello gesture, rhythm and pitch)."

Kaija Saariaho

Cendres

for Alto Flute, Piano and Cello (1998)
Jessie Nucho | Flute ~ Natalie Raney | Violoncello ~ Dr. Michael J. Smith | Piano

"I found the basis of the musical material for this piece in my double concerto ... à la fumée for alto flute, cello and orchestra. The name of the piece also derives from this.

While writing Cendres, I was mainly concen­trating on the inter­pre­tation of partic­ular musical ideas by the three different instru­ments of the trio, each of which has its unique character and palette of colours. Musical tension is created and regulated by sometimes bringing the instru­ments as close together as possible in all ways (pitch, rhythm, dynamics, artic­u­lation, colour etc.), or, at the other extreme, letting each of them express the music in their most idiomatic fashion. Between these two extremes there is an unlimited number of possible ways to create more or less homogenous musical situ­ations. The consciousness of this variety was the rope on which I was balancing whilst working on the piece.

Cendres was commissioned by the Gesellschaft fur Neue Musik Ruhr and Kulturbüro der Stadt Essen for the Wolpe Trio."

Kaija Saariaho

—Intermission—

Jardin Secret II

for Harpsichord and Electronics (1986)* West Coast Premiere
Dr. Daniel Pesca | Harpsichord ~ Bruce Bennett | Electronics

"Jardin secret II (1984-86) for harpsichord and tape continues the line of compo­sition I began to develop in Jardin secret I for tape alone. In Jardin secret II, I concentrated more partic­u­larly on rhythm. Thus in these two pieces, on the same principle, I have partic­u­larly worked on the abiguity in the rela­tionships between pitch, harmony, timbre and noise.

So whereas in Jardin secret I, the rhythmic inter­po­lations have none of the perceptive mechanism, in Jardin secret II, the attention is drawn to the relation between the instrument and the tape, to thedif­ferences between the human inter­pre­tation and that of the computer, likewise musical material created with the aid of the computer.

Unlike Jardin secret I, where the tape material was produced completely synthet­i­cally, Jardin secret II uses concrete sounds (the harpsichord and my own voice that were fed into the computer and processed at the digital studio of GRM, including the spatial­i­sation). Finally the material was given rhythmic shape using the FORMES programme at IRCAM."

Kaija Saariaho

Petals

for Cello and Electronics (1988)* West Coast Premiere
Natalie Raney | Violoncello ~ David Gonzales | Electronics

"Petals for solo cello was written abruptly in a few days, but evidently after a long unconscious preparation. The material stems directly from Nymphéa for string quartet and electronics. The name of the piece is derived from this rela­tionship.

The opposite elements here are fragile coloristic passages which give birth to more energetic events with clear rhythmic and melodic character. These more sharply focussed figures pass through different transfor­mations, and finally merge back to less dynamic but not the less intensive filigration.

In bringing together these very opposite modes of expressions I aimed to force the interpreter to stretch his sensi­bility."

Kaija Saariaho

Im Traume

for Cello and Piano (1980)** US Premiere
Eric Moore | Violoncello ~ Dr. Daniel Pesca | Piano

Commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company for a series of new pieces for cello and piano. The first performers were Veikko Höylä, cello, and Liisa Pohjola, piano. Im Traume was broadcast on radio in April 1981. The work had to wait until the 1982 Ung nordisk musik festival to have its concert premiere. This was the composer's first paid commission, and at the same time her last work composed in Finland. The piece, inspired by the music of Finnish composer Erik Bergman (1911–2006), attempts to capture, in the composer's words, "the logic of dreams" on a musical level.

Risto Nieminen