1-György Ligeti -1923-2006 -Hungary
Primary Forces: Orchestral, Ensemble, Chamber, Piano
1 Lontano -1967- 12’ -Spotify/BPO-Nott
Marc’s Note: One of the composer’s most famous works for grand orchestra, in
which traditional melody and rhythm recede in favour of evolving sound masses
moving through space.
2 Piano Concerto -1985-1988 -23’ -Spotify/Aimard-Schönberg Ens.-De Leeuw
Marc’s Note: Ligeti struggled for years with this five-movement concerto,
which is saturated with aural illusions and sparkling textures. Fractal
thinking informed aspects of the work’s structure and contributes to its
constantly transforming character.
3 Violin Concerto -1989-1993 -28’ -Spotify/Faust-Les Siècles-Roth
Marc’s Note: This wild and extreme violin concerto is full of outlandish
timbres, abrupt swerves and expressive extremes. Ligeti pushes his imagination
to the hilt and achieves a real kaleidoscope of sounds and techniques.
4 SQ 2 -1968- 20’- Spotify/Quatuor Diotima
After four nervous, brutal and tumultuous movements, we are treated to one
of the most delicate finales in chamber music.
5 Etudes-Book 2 -1988-1994 -23’ -Spotify/Aimard
Ligeti opens this book with an etude that alludes to the harmonic and
timbral world of Debussy and gamelan. Entrelacs and der Zauberlehrling feature
dizzyingly fast note repetitions, while Vertige, l’Escalier du Diable and
Infinite Column refer to spiral phenomena in nature, man-made objects and
sound.
6 Volumina -1961-1962 -16’- YT/Susteck
Volumina for solo organ develops note clusters that form large sound blocks.
Traditional melody and harmony recede as the composer focuses on sound colour
and texture.
7 Lux Aeterna -1966 -10’ -YT/Capella Amsterdam-Reuss
This choral piece sets the Latin text of the Requiem Mass. Through
micropolyphonic writing and subtly shifting pulse, Ligeti creates a shimmering
and unsettling effect.
8 Requiem -1963-1965 -26’ -Spotify/Stein-Van Reisen-London Voices-BPO-Nott
Only three segments of the traditional Latin Mass (Introit, Kyrie and the
combined Dies Irae-Lacrimosa sequence) are set. The composer was strongly
influenced by painters such as Memling, Brueghel, Bosch and Dürer.
The highlight is the Dies Irae with its hysterical, dramatic and
unrestrained character.
2-Pierre Boulez-1925-2016-France
Primary Forces: Orchestral, Ensemble, Vocal
1 Rituel in Memoriam Maderna for
orchestra-1974-1975-25’-Spotify/BBC SO-Boulez
Marc’s Note: Rituel unfolds at a solemn pace with sad, mournful tones.
The work demonstrates how Boulez’s serial thinking can convey genuine emotion.
Percussion and woodwind instruments dominate the score, and only some of the
orchestral sections are active at any given time. We move from one orchestral
group to another, exploring their timbres, while the melodic material primarily
serves to sustain an atmosphere of deep sorrow.
2 Répons for ensemble, orchestra and
electronics-1981-1984-42’-YT/EIC-Pintscher
Marc’s Note:
This is post-serial Boulez at its best.
Thanks to real time electronics, the composer is able to associate synthetic
and instrumental sounds with remarkable precision. He creates new timbres and
distributes the sound in space, producing true spatial music and opening
original acoustic dimensions and colours. Répons is a dazzling achievement and
stands at the very heart of late Boulez.
3 Livre pour cordes (from Livre pour quatuor)-2017
version-56’-Spotify/Diotima Quartet
Marc’s Note:
“Work in progress” is one of Boulez’s trademarks, and Livre pour quatuor, his
only string quartet, is a perfect example of a work that took decades to reach
its final form. The excellent composer Philippe Manoury completed the missing
fourth movement in 2017.
The quartet is a brilliant and fundamental exercise in rigorous serialism on
both harmonic and rhythmic levels. Abrupt and constant changes in timbre, very
extended techniques such as sul ponticello, col legno and pizzicato, and subtle
contrasts follow one another, ranging from dry austerity to a nearly
improvisatory suppleness. A major work of the twentieth century.
4 Éclat for ensemble-1966-1970-27’-Spotify/EIC-Boulez
Marc’s Note: In his early aleatory period Boulez sought to combine controlled
chance with the constructive discipline of serial composition. Éclat continues
this exploration. Pitches, tempo and dynamics are predetermined, but the
conductor decides which motif to signal next.
The ensemble is divided into two groups: instruments whose sound dies away
quickly unless trilled, and instruments capable of sustaining sound. Boulez
weaves a luminous web of timbres through the interaction of these two families.
5 Messagesquisse for 7 cellos-1976-9’-Spotify/Queyras-Ensemble de
Violoncelles de Paris
Marc’s Note:
This short piece is dedicated to the composer’s friend Paul Sacher and contains
personal messages symbolically encoded, almost like a musical sketch.
Jean-Guihen Queyras is in total command of the solo part and carries the score
convincingly. A very slow simmering opening section is followed by a very fast
and dense central passage. Quivering sounds and sparse notes initiate the final
section, whose very rapid closing fragment ends the piece in brilliant fashion.
6 …explosante-fixe… for MIDI flute, two flutes, ensemble and
electronics-1991-1993-35’-Spotify/EIC-Boulez
Marc’s Note:
Boulez fully unleashes his imagination in this powerful work built around the
MIDI flute and two additional flutes, accompanied by the EIC. Boulez’s long
time assistant Andrew Gerzso oversees the crucial electroacoustic realisation,
and the electronic amplification allows the MIDI flute to cut through very
dense passages. The electronics generate swirling clouds of sound in constant
transformation.
7 Sur Incises for 3 pianos, 3 harps and 3
percussionists-1996-1998-39’-YT/EIC-Pintscher
Marc’s Note:
Boulez creates a remarkable and highly distinctive sound world with this
unusual instrumental combination. Glittering brilliance and contrapuntal
intricacies abound, yet the composer keeps every line clean and perfectly
transparent, exactly as one would expect from a composer of such rigor and
control.
8 Pli selon pli for soprano and ensemble-1989
version-69’-Spotify/Schäfer-EIC-Boulez
Marc’s Note:
Pli selon pli is based on a line by the French poet Mallarmé describing how
mist gradually disperses to reveal the topology of an imagined space.
The work is overtly theatrical in its large orchestral panels, Don and Tombeau,
which frame the three Improvisations. A restrained sensuality inhabits the
soprano line while the listener is immersed in an extraordinarily refined
instrumental palette. The composer regarded the 1989 version as the definitive
form of the work.
3-Zibuokle Martinaityte-1973-Lithuania
Primary Forces: Orchestral, Ensemble, Chamber, Vocal
1 Saudade for orchestra-2019-17’-Spotify/Lithuanian Nat SO-Slekyte
Marc’s Note:
In Portuguese Saudade means a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound
melancholic longing for an absent something or someone whom one loves.
In Martinaityte’s experience this notion symbolizes the stratum of multiple
yearnings that started layering with the blue period of her father’s death and
her immigration to the USA.
Her writing is expressively at her most ambiguous in this piece.
There are plenty of subtle, shifting colours and undulating shifting lines
that give the impression of a rippling surface with tensions roiling just
beneath.
Three terrifying climaxes suddenly drop off, lending the piece an aura of
harrowing mystery.
Her harmonic language is powerful, yet economical.
Slowly evolving chords accumulate density and tension until they erupt in
sudden orchestral changes.
2 Cello Concerto-Sielunmaisema-2019-35’-YT/Backus-Klaipeda Chamber
Orch-Rohde
Marc’s Note:
Sielunmaisema is a Finnish word, the equivalent of a sound-landscape, a
particular place that a person carries deep in the heart and returns to often
in memory. It immediately makes you feel at home.
Martinaityte is particularly interested by memory, identity, migration and
sonic beauty.
She uses the four seasons as four movements and a cherished memory of her
early life in Lithuania. There is nostalgia for the past and for the landscape
that is no longer the same due to global warming.
She moved to the USA as a young woman and has therefore two cultural
identities: Lithuanian and American.
She did not aim to compose a traditional cello concerto. Instead, the cello
behaves like a guide through the sonic landscape, sometimes emerging from the
orchestral dialogue, sometimes dissolving back into it.
The relationship is closer to a continuous conversation of timbres than to a
solo-tutti opposition.
The cello feels like an inner voice, while the orchestra acts like a
surrounding emotional field.
3 Percussion Concerto-Nunc fluens, nunc stans
-2020-16’-YT/Giunter-Lithuanian Chamber Orch-Kaliunis
Marc’s Note:
The title originates from a quote by the Roman philosopher Boethius. It
means: The Now that passes creates time, The Now that remains creates eternity.
These two different models of Now resonate with the Covid period. Only the
Now remained, which contradicted the ancient truths of philosophers.
The piece is a kind of diptych where both parts are performed without a
break.
The flowing time is followed by the standstill.
Vibraphone, crotales, gongs, bowed cymbal and a tubular bell constitute the
percussion complement performed by one percussionist.
They allow the music to whisper, murmur, buzz, toll and ring.
Instead of rhythmic virtuosity, the percussion writing emphasizes resonance
and colour, transforming metallic instruments into sources of sustained sound.
4 Ex Tenebris Lux for string orchestra-2021-24’-Spotify/Lithuanian Chamber
Orch-Variakojis
Marc’s Note:
From Darkness to Light was composed during the covid pandemic and symbolizes
a hopeful thought amid crisis and uncertainty.
The music is meant as a guide through a prolonged zone of darkness,
ultimately bringing the listener to light and allowing him/her to experience
it.
Martinaityte is a textural magician and she proves it again in this piece.
Multiple gradations of darkness are explored through the density of musical
textures. There is dramatic substance in the merest dynamic shifts and changes
of texture.
A kind of monolithic sound is created by the individual instruments and the
individualized lines are only differentiated when the state of light is
reached.
5 Solastalgia for ensemble-2020-13’-YT/Ensemble Synaesthesis-Variakojis
Marc’s Note:
The portmanteau title derives from the concepts of solace and desolation as
the suffix algia denotes suffering.
To Martinaityte it means that you can feel homesick although you are at home
but in different conditions because of environmental changes and global
warming.
Musically the piece unfolds as a fragile and unsettled soundscape.
Soft sustained tones and delicate instrumental colours create the impression
of a landscape that is slowly changing before our ears.
Nothing dramatic happens, yet a subtle unease permeates the entire piece, as
if the environment itself had become slightly unfamiliar.
Martinaite avoids clear melodic lines. Instead, she builds the music from
hovering harmonic fields, whispering gestures and faint pulses that seem to
appear and disappear like distant memories.
The ensemble often sounds suspended in time, creating a strange beauty that
is both comforting and unsettling.
The result is music that feels introspective and quietly haunting, capturing
the paradox of solastalgia: the sorrow of witnessing the transformation of a
place that once felt stable and eternal.
6 In Search of lost Beauty for piano, violin and
cello-2016-69’-Spotify/Balkstyte-Rupaite-Petrikiene-Jacunskas
Marc’s Note:
It is a piano trio with electronics and the electronics have pre-recorded
the same instruments as the live instruments.
The mixture of live and pre-recorded instruments creates a slightly blurred
sonic perspective.
When Martinaityte composed the piece, she was in search of lost time, a bit
like Proust. She started to pay attention to small details of the everyday and
noticed how beautiful everything becomes when you pay attention to it. She
realised attention creates the beauty.
Ten Sections are united into a structural coherent whole, as an invitation
to see beauty in familiar phenomena (found in nature, the everyday and art)
which usually go unnoticed.
They teach us to slow down and are a reaction against speedy screen images,
that constantly flood us.
This allows us to operate less automatically and discover true moments of
being.
The composer considered the work to be a breakthrough piece, a real turning
point.
7 Hadal Zone-2020-2021-64’-Spotify/Ensemble Synaesthesis
Marc’s Note:
The composer loves nature and particularly the silence or rather the
microscopic sound layers in nature that are a welcome respite from the
aggressive sound of urban life.
Hadal Zone is a journey through the deepest depths of the ocean. In fact,
the five different layers of the ocean are the five movements of the piece.
It is scored for low instruments-bass clarinet, tuba, cello, contrabass,
piano and electronics.
The instrumental music she composed is slow and fosters introspection and
serenity.
Hadal Zone refers to the deepest zone of the ocean, but the entire work is
about ocean zones being traversed vertically. It is a journey during which
there will be silence, muted sounds and some growls that could have been
uttered by ocean monsters.
8 Aletheia-2022-15’-Spotify/Latvian Radio Choir-Klava
Marc’s Note:
For her vocal music, Martinaityte has made the deliberate choice not to use
words, but only vowels of which there are plenty in her Lithuanian language.
She does not want to be limited by the text, because it would define the
meaning and make it narrower.
The audience can fully hear how the voices are combining, how time flows and
what happens harmonically.
One can sense echoes of the complex layering of High Renaissance choral
music, but also harmonies that are close to Ligeti’s sound-world.
Aletheia means “uncovering of the truth” in Greek and particularly the truth
we are afraid to face.
The piece was influenced by the war in Ukraine and the composer herself was
inspired by the importance of the human voice. Voice is the first and last
instrument we have in our lifetime. This thought brings an almost sacred
dimension to the voice as an expression of life between birth and death.
9 Togetherness for piano-2007-2008-7’-YT/Cahill
Marc’s Note:
I could not resist offering you an encore in the form of a moving piano
piece, as the piano is Martinaityte’s instrument.
Togetherness is the first movement of Heights and Depths of Love, that is
unfinished up to now.
It starts with sumptuous, layered sounds which morph into a mesmerizing
massive buildup middle-section and ends with a small impressionistic flourish.
4-Hector Parra-1976-Spain
Primary Forces: Orchestral, Ensemble, Keyboard, Opera
1 Inscape for orchestra-2017-2018-30’-YT/Orch Nat Lille-Bloch
Marc’s Note:
Inscape is conceived for sixteen soloists embedded within a large orchestra
and electronics. Parra imagines the piece as a psychoacoustic expedition that
carries the listener far beyond familiar perception, into a hypothetical
journey inside a black hole.
The work opens in a fragile sonic environment built from tiny sound
particles. Instrumental gestures, faint vocal-like timbres and even the
presence of the audience seem to merge into a single organic field.
Gradually the orchestral mass gains momentum. Electronics interact
increasingly with the instrumental soloists and propel the music toward zones
of extreme density and energy.
Musical space and time begin to warp and the delicate opening textures
mutate into turbulent and distorted forces as the listener approaches the
acoustic equivalent of an event horizon.
Electronic spectra resembling gravitational waves sweep through the hall.
Their changing densities and spatial movement reshape the perception of the
surrounding acoustic space, which seems to expand and contract as if influenced
by cosmic forces.
After passing through this violent sonic threshold, the music suggests a
transition toward an unknown realm, like travelling through a wormhole toward a
new universe. The nature of this new space remains mysterious and Parra leaves
it to the music itself to hint at what might exist beyond.
2 Wilde-Suite for orchestra-2015-8’-Soundcloud/OBC-Ono
Marc’s Note:
Wilde is originally a play by the Austrian playwright Händl Klaus which
Parra adopted first to opera and then to a suite for orchestra.
The plot is the story of a young doctor, working for Médecins sans
Frontières, who returned home by train after a difficult experience in a
Moldovan prison. He ends up in the wrong station, in a deserted city where he
meets two savage brothers and accompanies them to their home.
A stifling spiral ensues in which the brothers’ family abuses their guest.
The physical and moral degradation that a human being may endure is the
cornerstone of the work and invites us to reflect on important issues in
today’s society.
The Suite is a form of synthesis of the opera as Parra brings the spirit of
Wilde to the concert hall with its claustrophobic tensions and its abysses, but
also with its moments of hope that come close to tenderness.
3 La Mort I la Primavera for ensembles-2021-43’-YT/EIC-Leguay & Remix
Ensemble-Casa de Musica-Rundel
Marc’s Note:
In this large-scale tone poem Parra employs two ensembles conducted
independently, creating a layered narrative structure unfolding across six
movements.
The works takes inspiration from Mercé Rodoreda’s unfinished and
posthumously published novel La Mort I la Primavera. The story depicts a
nightmarish society governed by cruel traditions and constant fear, seen
through the eyes of an adolescent searching for escape.
Parra translates the oppressive atmosphere of the novel into music filled
with ritualistic violence and permanent tension. Dark instrumental colours
dominate, particularly through the prominent role of the cello and double bass
whose weight becomes increasingly decisive in the final movements.
Against this bleak environment the flute occasionally introduces moments of
fragile lyricism that momentarily relieve the tension.
The result resembles a ritual spectacle: a kind of sacred dance, a ballet
without dancers or an opera without voices. Its relentless rhythmic drive and
elemental energy can evoke distant echoes of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
4 Limite les Rêves au-delà for cello and
electronics-2017-71’-Spotify/Deforce
Marc’s Note:
Parra’s interest in astrophysics once again provides the conceptual
framework for this monumental work for cello and electronics.
The piece functions as a large-scale psychoacoustic exploration that seeks
to push musical perception beyond ordinary sensory limits. Throughout the work
a continuous dialogue unfolds between the natural resonance of the cello and
electronically transformed sound.
These interactions range from confrontation to gradual fusion, creating what
can be heard as a kind of cosmological symphony in which acoustic and
electronic energies intertwine.
Cellist Arne Deforce confronts the immense expressive demands of the score,
generating an extraordinary range of variations and textures from the
instrument. Sound engineer Thomas Goepfer extends these gestures
electronically, amplifying their impact and projecting them into a vast sonic
space.
The music ultimately becomes an invitation to experience the immense und
untamed forces of the universe through sound.
5 SQ 3-Aracné-2015-14’-Soundcloud/Qt Tana
Marc’s Note:
In Aracné Parra draws inspiration from Velazquez’s painting Las Hilanderas,
transforming the visual imagery of spinning threads into a highly theatrical
musical process.
The quartet begins in a relatively traditional manner but gradually
undergoes a striking transformation. The musicians themselves become part of
the metaphor as their instruments and gestures evoke the activity of spinning
and weaving.
To achieve this, each performer attaches a silk thread to the instrument,
effectively creating an additional vibrating element that acts like a fifth
string. This unusual device produces an astonishing palette of sounds: bird
calls, buzzing swarms, distant thunder, creaking mechanisms or galloping
rhythms.
The silk thread is not merely a theatrical effect but an integral component
of the compositional idea, enabling the Tana Quartet to generate extremely
dense timbral textures and saturated sonic colours.
6 String Trio for violin, viola and cello-2006-11’-YT/Ensemble Recherche
Marc’s Note:
The extreme sonorous plasticity of the string trio, the inheritance of the
variation and a certain structural freedom, as well as a clear tendency towards
polyphony (perpetual friction of the three sonorous fluxes) have inspired Parra
to compose music with an internal organization that relies on different types
of energy which this formation can make us feel.
String Trio tries to erase the frontier between the gesture of the
instruments and the interior expression, between the acoustic space and time as
perceived by the audience.
Parra was also inspired by Lisa Randall, a professor in physics, whose model
posits a universe with five dimensions, which has encouraged him to open up a
new dimension of the psycho-acoustic space.
The transformation and spatialization of the instrumental sounds transport
the listener to states of high sonorous energies.
7 Au Coeur de l’Oblique for piano-2016-2017-22’-YT/Gentet
Marc’s Note:
This piano work pays tribute to the architects Claude Parent and Paul
Virilio, whose theory of the “fonction oblique” challenged traditional
architectural space through the use of inclined planes. Their ideas culminated
in the striking design of the Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay church.
Parra transposes this architectural thinking into musical form. The piece
examines how musical structures can behave when stability is replaced by a
sense of tilt and imbalance.
In the first movement the pianist extracts energy from dense chords using
unconventional physical contact with the instrument, including nails, palms and
fingertips. The accumulated tension gradually pushes the performer toward a
psychological threshold.
The second part reflects the massive sobriety of Parent’s church. The tempo
relaxes and the pianist combines conventional keyboard playing with sounds
produced directly on the strings.
The work ultimately accelerates toward a fluid and undulating piano language
of considerable virtuosity.
8 L’Aube assaillie for cello and electronics-18’-Spotify/Akerberg
Marc’s Note:
The study of new concepts in physics, his passion for painting, contemporary
dance and especially the collaboration with performers have encouraged Parra to
sculpt a clear cut, more varied and more polyphonic language for strings.
L’ Aube assaillie for cello and electronics was composed at Ircam where
Parra worked closely together with the French choreographer Frédéric Lescure as
the music was meant to accompany a ballet.
The composer has conceived a music, wherein the function of the different
temporal fluxes produces an energetic impulse, which the listener can strongly
perceive at any moment.
The audience is maintained in a very strong state of concentration, which
lets its ears vibrate with the most subtle temporal gradations.
The cello sound allows for an incomparable listening possibility of
movement, as dance is at the same time complement and development of the
gesture of the performer.
9 Hypermusic Prologue for soprano, baritone and
ensemble-2008-2009-64’-YT/Ellett-Bobby-EIC-Power
Marc’s Note:
Hypermusic Prologue is an opera for soprano, baritone and an ensemble of ten
musicians.
The work explores ideas from theoretical physics concerning additional
spatial dimensions.
Parra collaborated directly with physicist Lisa Randall, whose book Warped
passages inspired the project: Randall herself wrote the libretto.
The drama revolves around two characters whose attitudes towards the
universe diverge. The soprano seeks to explore higher dimensions and unknown
realities, while the baritone initially prefers the security of a familiar and
static world.
As their relationship develops, he is ultimately compelled to follow her
into the hypothetical fifth dimension in order to preserve their bond.
Musically Parra represents these extra dimensions through an expanded sonic
language involving electronic processing, vocal distortions and extended
techniques. The shifting textures and shimmering electronic sounds convey both
the tension between the two characters and their eventual reconciliation.
5-Clara Iannotta-1983-Italy
Primary Forces: Orchestra, Ensemble, Chamber
Clara Iannotta’s music unfolds in a world where sound is treated less as a vehicle for gesture than as a fragile material that retains memory. Her works often revolve around traces: what remains after an action, what lingers after sound has nearly disappeared.
Across her output, one encounters a consistent attention to resonance, decay and transformation. Musical ideas rarely develop through contrast or dramatic opposition, instead, they mutate slowly, as if observed under a microscope. This creates a sense of suspended time, where past and present coexist rather than replace one another.
Her frequent use of altered instruments, unconventional objects and noise-based techniques is not decorative. It serves to reveal the physical substance of sound: its grain, instability and vulnerability. Pitch and noise are placed on equal footing, forming hybrid textures that feel at once intimate and elusive.
Literary references, especially to Dorothy Molloy, provide evocative starting points, but Iannotta avoids direct illustration. Instead, her music inhabits emotional or perceptual states: disorientation, absence, transformation. These are not narrated, but sustained over time, often without resolution.
A recurring feature of her work is the avoidance of climax. Rather than moving toward culmination, her pieces tend to dissipate, thin out, or live behind residues: like imprints that persist after the event has passed.
Within this aesthetic, each work can be understood as a different perspective on the same underlying concerns.
1 Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar II for string orchestra, objects and sine waves-2016-15’-YT/Munich Chamber Orch-Schuldt
Originally conceived within a project interweaving new works with Partita no 1 in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, this piece takes its point of departure from the Double of the Corrente, though only in a distant, almost ghostly way. Clara Iannotta stretches and distorts the underlying gestures, surrounding them with glissandi, fragile noise layers and unstable textures.
The evocative title comes from the poetry of Dorothy Molloy, yet the connection remains indirect. Rather than illustrating the poem, the music seems to hover around its atmosphere.
In this expanded version for string orchestra, the material of the original solo piece grows outward. Instrumental sound is enriched by sine waves and unusual objects: bird-call devices, bowed synthetic materials and resonant surfaces. The result is kind of magnified sonic organism, where each gesture lingers and dissolves into its own resonance.
2 Moult for chamber orchestra-2018-2019-17’-YT/WDR SO-Wendeberg
In Moult, Iannotta draws on the biological process by which spiders shed their exoskeleton in order to grow. This act of renewal leaves behind a fragile imprint of the former body, creating a coexistence between what was and what is becoming.
The orchestra is imagined as undergoing a similar transformation.
Muscal material appears to slough off layers, while traces of earlier states remain embedded in the texture. The piece unfolds in a suspended temporality, where past and present overlap rather than replace one another.
Sound seems to carry memory within it: gestures are not erased but persist as shadows, giving the work a sense of continuous metamorphosis rather than linear progression.
3 Strange Bird-No longer navigating by a star for guitar and orchestra-2022-14’-YT/Santorsa-ORF Radio SO Vienna-Alsop
The piece is part of the cycle inspired by the Irish poet Dorothy Molloy.
This time the poet talks about the fact of feeling strange in our skin, as if there was an empty space in our body.
It is if one has completely lost a sense of direction.
Iannotta does not try to search for a new direction, but tries to inhabit the empty space and to find a reason to live in it.
Her goal is to fill the empty space with music.
Molloy uses the metaphor of the directionless, strange, flapping bird whose distant echoes indicate that he is lost.
The piece introduces the movement of the bird drifting from place to place without ever landing or finding its destination.
This is also the impression the audience gets from the music with its constant, relentless but subtle movement towards an unknown destination.
4 Piano Concerto-The purple fuchsia bled upon the ground-2023-2024-17’-YT/Aimard-WDR SO-Schwarz
Iannotta processes the death of her mother in this piano concerto and it is no wonder that the audience hears horrendous sounds and acoustic violence, similar to animalistic menace, which are an outlet for the composer’s grief.
She wanted the music to bleed and the dedicatee and soloist Aimard produced clusters, which splashed into virulent sound surfaces.
The work explores the physicality of sound with an unusual orchestration, including electric guitar, Midi piano and accordion, accompanied by electronic passages which sometimes evoke bird songs.
The pianist navigates between pounded low registers and strings, that are plucked to the limit of audibility.
The music has a cinematic touch and alternates intense passages with electronic interventions in dynamic sequences which offer the audience no respite.
Iannotta’s piece is very experimental and creates a laboratory of new possibilities.
5 Il Colore dell’Ombra for ensemble-2010-12’-YT/Longleash
In this early ensemble work, Iannotta takes inspiration from the refined colour palette of Maurice ravel, particularly his chamber writing, but redirects it toward a more tactile and material exploration of sound.
The instruments are subtly altered: strings are detuned or damped; the piano is prepared at specific points and bow techniques are diversified. These interventions do not aim at effect for its own sake, but rather at revealing the physical substance of sound itself: its grain, resistance and fragility.
Microtonal inflections and delicate articulations create a constantly shifting spectrum of timbres. Instead of a stable harmonic field, the listener encounters a living surface of sound, where colour emerges from the interaction between gesture and material.
6 Paw Marks in wet Cement for piano, two percussionists and amplified ensemble-2015-2018-Spotify/Latchoumia-L’Instant donné-Zielinski
The title, taken from a line by Dorothy Malone, evokes the idea of a trace left behind: a fragile inscription of something no longer present. This notion of imprint shapes the entire piece.
Although the instrumentation recalls the tradition of the piano concerto, Iannotta deliberately avoids hierarchy. The piano, often prepared and shared between the soloist and percussionists, blends into the ensemble rather than dominating it.
The opening introduces a field of unstable materials: sliding strings, muted piano sonorities and unconventional brass colours. A more abstract central section reworks these elements, dispersing their identity.
In the final part, instead of building toward a climax, the music withdraws. Light, almost playful sounds: bird calls, friction drum appear like residual echoes.
What remains is not resolution, but the lingering impression of what has passed.
7 Earthing-Dead Wasps for SQ-2020-13’-YT/Jack Qt
This string quartet reflects Iannotta’s affinity with the aesthetic of Helmut Lachenmann, where conventional pitch and noise are treated as equal components of music language.
The opening establishes an ambiguous terrain in which sound seems suspended, neither fully static nor clearly directional. Movement exists, but within tight constraints, as if the music were confined to a limited space.
As the piece unfolds, the texture becomes densely populated with fleeting details: small sonic events that emerge and vanish before they can be fully grasped. Moments of rhythmic definition offer brief orientation, yet they are continually undermined by the instability of the surrounding environment.
The ending does not resolve this tension. Instead, a few luminous tones remain, gradually dissolving into silence, leaving behind a sense of unresolved presence.
8 Limun for violin and viola-2011-9’-YT/Maurer-Mellinger
Written for violin and viola, Limun explores the inherent tension between two closely related instruments. Their interaction generates a constant play of friction and resonance.
Sustained bow pressure produces airy harmonics, while abrupt interruptions and sharp changes of direction disrupt any sense of continuity. The music seems to circle around itself in the first part, driven by a succession of contrasting techniques.
In the second half, these opposing forces begin to realign. Without eliminating the tension, the piece gradually moves toward a more balanced state, where the earlier conflicts are not resolved but absorbed into a quieter equilibrium.
Il colore dell’ombra: sound as material, exposed in its inner grain and instability
Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar II: gesture expanded into resonance, dissolving into its own afterlife
Moult: Transformation through shedding, where past forms persist as sonic imprints
Paw Marks in wet cement: music as trace, shaped by what remains rather than what is stated
Earthing-Dead Wasps: a dense, unstable field where noise and pitch continuously blur
Limun: friction between instrumental identities, moving toward a fragile equilibrium
Strange Bird: slow, directionless drift, sustained without arrival or release
The purple fuchsia bled upon the ground: grief rendered as accumulation and saturation of sound
Taken together, these works form a remarkably coherent body of music.
contemporaryclassicalnow.com 