Waves
Waves, concerto for solo cello, trumpet obligato, string orchestra and computer (Ambisonics), 2002
12:45′
Orchestral parts by Edition Kunzelmann, LK-617
Commissioned by Expo.02 (Swiss Pavilion)
Première: May 25, 2002, Expo.02, Murten (Thomas Demenga, cello, Pierre-Alain Monot, trumpet, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Howard Griffiths)
November 2009 und January 2010, recording sessions for PARMA Recordings in Olomouc (Czech Republic) with Petr Nouzovsky, cello and the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra with Petr Vronsky. Released on CD Streams.
Sound samples
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In Waves the concert hall is used as an additional creative vehicle. The soloist and the string orchestra play on the concert platform, as tradition requires, but are offset by a trumpeter in the rear of the auditorium who intervenes at key junctures of the music, forming a sort of temporary counterpart to the solo cellist.
The entire piece is, one might say, encapsulated in an electronic layer that frequently emerges in waves and spreads in a precisely calculated manner throughout the entire space demarcated by a number of loudspeakers. This electronic layer is coordinated with the live instrumentalist by means of a click track (an audible metronome) conveyed to the conductor by headphones. This makes it possible to precisely control the polymeters, producing a type of counterpoint in which contrasting and independent levels of tempo run in precise ratios to each other.
The electronic part of the score was produced in Schlumpf’s studio in Würenlingen with the aid of sound expanders and virtual samplers controlled by computer and edited in special programs. Its spatial distribution was made possible by a research project conducted by a group of his colleagues at the Hochschule for Music and Theater in Zurich: the so-called “ambisonics procedure.”
Waves presents an imaginary theater with various protagonists who enter into conversation with each other from various positions and universes, fall asunder, form subgroups, vanish and resurface … until the most important unite at the end in a brief ritualistic celebration.
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