elision

Karlheinz ESSL
Born 1960, Vienna, Austria

elision (1997)

bass clarinet, horn, contrabass, percussion
Commissioned by ELISION Ensemble with the assistance of the Österrichischen Ministeriums für Bildung und Kunst

elision was commissioned by the ELISION Ensemble by its artistic director Daryl BUCKLEY whom I met in November 1993 after the premier of Entsagung at IRCAM (Paris). I stayed constantly in contact with Daryl discussing various topics related to this composition where we realised that we share a similar view of composition aujourd'hui: music that emerges as a sound process by the interaction of highly complex materials and its subsequent derivations.

When I was in Paris again, I started to sketch the process of the piece during a never-ending train ride towards a Parisian suburb: four basically low-pitched instruments of different types (bass clarinet, french horn, double bass and percussion) using the same basic sound material (Klangtypen) which are carefully modelled individually for each instrument's specific physical-acoustical properties.

By this, a complex network of structural relationships was established which draws its power from the dialectic between unity and diversity. On the one hand, there is a tendency of unification where the different instruments try (so to speak) to achieve similar sound results although they are -- physically -- not compatible acoustical systems. On the other hand, one can also observe the opposed strategy, namely to create individual gestures which cannot be imitated by the other instruments.

This network provides a field of possibilities which is explored like in a drama on stage: in the beginning, the four protagonists are using the same material and try to melt into a similar sonic result (which is achieved by a sort of time-variant canonic structure). During the course of the piece, the tendency of individualisation becomes stronger, resulting in a state where each instrument is speaking "with its own tongue". In this way, the piece exceeds its inherent musical domains and becomes a metaphor for a sociological situation at the end of this millennium.

elision was commissioned with assistance from the Österreichischen fur Ministeriums für Bildung und Kunst.

Programme note © Karlheinz ESSL