Residual is a piece for ensemble and electronics, premiered by Hermes Ensemble at the Concertgebouw in Bruges, on November 21st, 2019. The ensemble consists of flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and percussions. As already mentioned in ch.3.3 – where the technical setup has been explained in details –, cello and percussion act as soloists: they are in the foreground, both using piezos to play, while the rest of the ensemble is arranged right behind them, with a very smooth amplification.
Most of the experimental attempts that I have made during the creative process have been focused on exploring the way piezo could be efficiently used on percussive instruments, specifically on timpani, marimba, crotales and a güiro. Many gestures performed with percussion are then doubled by the cello, with gestures that produce a similar sound quality. The sections of the piece are characterized and shaped by the evolution of a few specific gestures. The first section, for example, is conceived starting from a gentle scraping on the surface of the timpani, which is amplified through the piezo, with fingers or nails. This gesture is moulded by a clear rhythmical structure, which is mechanically repeated by the cello entering at b.13, with a quite a similar pitchless and airy sound, produced by the movement of the bow right next to the piezo, placed flat on the IV string. Starting from b.20, this rhythmical counterpoint is partially imitated by the viola and the violin, which alternate or play together. At b. 44, the first pitched sound appears: the clarinet enters playing a single note in pp in a quite high register. From here to b.99 the flute and the clarinet develop a quite heterophonic dialogue, while the string sections and the timpani keep on with the same rhythmical texture of airy sound. From b.92 the tempo is slowed down, progressively the airy sounds thin out, as well as the heterophony between the clarinet and the flute. The violin and the viola are slowly left alone, and they move on to build a new quite fragile heterophony, with high harmonic sounds, played molto sul tasto and with very light pressure. This delicate texture is then enriched by the flute, which joins by repeating a few very subtle multiphonics (from b.109), and by the clarinet, which starts playing a few long notes in the middle register (from b.113). The ensemble keeps playing this very fragile texture until b.140, where the tempo is slowed down even more and a new section starts.
The opening of the following section is given to a solo gesture by the cello. With the piezo placed flat on the string, the cello plays quite airy and rather noisy sounds, that are irregularly modulated in pitch by ascending and descending glissando movements of the piezo. These sounds are recorded and processed by the electronics, and played back from the main loudspeakers (see ch.3.3) creating an extra layer of sound. From b.147, the ensemble starts to create a very soft harmonic texture in the background, in which chords morph slowly through the out of phase distribution of entrance and closing of single sounds of each instrument. At b.196 the cello is asked to play with an over-pressure of the bow, drastically increasing the dynamics. Right under this complex sound the marimba begins to play its lowest note with the bow. The wooden materiality of this sound emerges clearly through the amplification of this low marimba key with the piezo. Moreover, the percussionist adds some short sounds played hitting the crotales with the piezo. The over pressured cello sound is then repeated a few times, always framed by complex chords of the ensemble, which include loud multiphonics of the flute and the clarinet. Indeed this section is the most dramatic of the piece, and it fades out at b.213, where the sustained sound of the marimba is left alone. From this point begins the last section of the piece, marked by the focus on a few different gestures. The percussionist alternates the long notes on the lowest C of the marimba, with hitting the crotales with the piezo. The cello keeps on playing airy sounds, whose closing is put in relation with a gesture of the ensemble, consisting of a short airy sounds of flute ad clarinet and a short tremolo of the violin and the viola. In the meantime, the cello begins to introduce percussive actions by tapping the string with the piezo, doubling the crotales. From b.240 until b.258 the cello goes back to the airy sound, shaping it with a rhythmical profile that clearly recalls the very beginning of the piece. From b.259 the cello and the marimba are left alone until the end of the piece (a certain symmetry could be recognized in the fact that both the beginning and the end of Residual are assigned to the soloists). The electronics echoes the low and long tones of the marimba, while the crotales and the cello exchange their percussive sounds, processed through a delay. From b.268 the cello takes back the bow and it starts to dialogue with the electronic echoes of the marimba, playing a double sound on the IV open string and on the III string “tuned” with the piezo. From b.291 the sound of the cello becomes more complex since the piezo has also to be placed oblique on the string, producing a scraped sound. The latter is doubled by the sound of the güiro played with the piezo. On top of an electronic texture created by the overlap of different echoes of the marimba sound, the dialogue between the cello and the güiro closes the piece.
The whole work is formally structured around specific sound materials, whose hierarchies change during the piece according to the repetition or the variations of their occurrences. The way different sound materials are put together by analogy, symmetry, or by opposition tends to guide the listening experience, allowing the listener to recognize some sound gestures and their evolution throughout the piece, while creating an aural memory of them. The development of such a compositional approach has been driven by theoretical questioning about how memory works in grasping and storing information about sound. Different sonic ideas and different sound gestures tend to evolve within different temporal and spatial dimensions. As Sciarrino pointed out when speaking about the window-form (see ch.3.1), more or less complex blocks full of different information can be assembled by producing traumatic frictions and multiple connections in our memory. The polyphony of relations that emerges, combines different perspectives, following a principle of intermittence through which our mind jumps from a temporal window to another, anticipating or remembering the different sonic ideas.
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