File
Quartet for Saxophone, Trombone, Vibprahone and Piano
15' | 2008 | Composed for Ensemble Klang
SCORE PREVIEW
Instrumentation
Tenor saxophone, trombone, vibraphone and piano
Duration
15 minutes
Date and place of composition
Paris, Nice
Premiere of the first version
October, 2009, Paris, France
Ensemble Klang
Premiere of the revised version
July, 2021, Melbourne, Australia
Forest Collective
Publisher
Watch
Note
La voix éthérée is a piece that I composed in 2009 for the Haag based Ensemble Klang. During that year there was significant political and social turmoil in Iran, my country of origin. The piece was dedicated to the vitiates of that incident.
Over time I decided to refresh the piece and give it a breath of life. The new version is specifically composed for the Forest Collective performers within the Asia in Focus concerts in July 2021.
The four instruments used in the piece evoke a multitude of musical situations. For instance: the piano may sound like a base drum with its fast repetitions of the same note in very low register, or extremely short chords with lengthy leaps.
Also, singing into the saxophone or trombone develops complex chords that are similar to electronic sounds.
Unlike the piano and vibraphone, those instruments are able to produce intervals shorter than half tones. This allows tempered and nontempered instruments to meet.
Then emerges a dialogue between the harmonic and non-harmonic, the noise and voice, the substantial and unsubstantial, pure notes and airy sounds.
In « La voix éthérée », silence has a metaphoric role. It has its own voice.
“Silence” is not the death of voice or an end to its message
Dans cette œuvre le silence représente un hommage à ceux qui ont perdu leur vie pour la liberté.
La voix éthérée est la confrontation du timbre, de la mélodie et du « silence ». Le début de la pièce est basé sur un jeu de timbres. L’effet de modulation en anneau, émis par la voix dans les instruments, s’oriente vers le son pur pour ainsi créer des intervalles horizontaux et verticaux.
Le silence dans cette pièce, au niveau acoustique, ainsi qu’au point de vue métaphorique, a une signification particulière. Il agit en effet comme une chambre virtuelle d’écho dans laquelle le discours musical n’est pas mort. Il s’intensifie. Le silence n’est pas l’absence du son et du message, au contraire.