Kwartludium

Piotr Nowicki, piano
Paweł Nowicki, percussion
Dagna Sadkowska, violin
Michał Górczyński, clarinet

VERKKOMMENTARER

Wojciech Ziemowit Zych – Always present longing (10’)(2005)
The title of Stale obecna tęsknota (Always present longing) derived from Tadeusz Wielecki’s phrase from narrator’s text from his piece Egocentric Poem for amplified piano and tape (1996). The piece, dedicated to Tadeusz Wielecki, was written for Kwartludium Ensemble in spring 2005 as a result of my mutual cooperation with the Ensemble in the past several years, what reflects also its scoring + bassclarinet, violin, vibraphone and marimmba (1 percussion player), and piano. In the piece there are used multiphonics and other contemporary playing techniques for bassclarinet, double stopped harmonics combined with glissandi on the violin, double bowing technique for vibraphone, as well as resonating harmonics on the piano in the final movement. The piece consists of three compact movements (I. Andante, II. Allegro, III. Lento) , of which second and third are played without a break. The piece has been included by Kwartludium Ensemble in their first CD published by Dux Recording Company in 2008. First live performance by Kwartludium was during Musica Polonica Nova Contemporary Music Festival in Wroclaw/Poland in April 2010.

Giedrė Pauliukevičiūtė – Glass (10’)(2019) "Glass" ("Stiklas") - I like watching rain, how the transparent raindrops go down the glass of windows. The crying glass blurs the view and transforms itself. This piece revolves around the changes, which are sometimes beyond the reach of our thoughts. Giedrė Pauliukevičiūtė

Chihchun Chi-sun Lee - Zusammenflusses (10’)(2019) is commissioned by National Theater Concert Hall in Taiwan, premiered by Mr. Min-Chin Kuo at his zheng recital in 2013. Using the characteristics of zheng and vibraphone, their similarity and contrasts are expressed through confluence. The revision for percussion and grand piano was completed in 2019 and premiered by Piotr Nowicki and Paweł Nowicki on 3ed of October 2019 during XXVII.RANDFESTSPIELE in Berlin-Zepernick.

Tadeusz Wielecki – Multiple image for ensemble (13’)(2016) The composition is inspired by “dynamistatics” – a mysterious state that refers to everything that is movement and rest at the same time. And that’s what the music is: whenever we listen to it. We experience something similar to a “resting motion” or “motile rest”. For music is both dynamic and static, and these two properties cannot be separated. This phenomenon was the topic of the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 2015 and for its purpose a neologism-oxymoron “dynamistatics” has been invented. Multiple image, referring figuratively and literally to the Pythagorean concept of harmony of spheres and a vision of rotating celestial bodies, which circulate creating a sound system of cosmic harmony, is dynamistatic par excellence: its construction relies on numerous sound loops, i.e. repeated harmonic formulas overlapping each other. Each of these formulas is part of one harmonic structure common to the entire work, but maintains a different tempo, distinct from the others.

Fredrik Gran - VOLD for violin, clarinet, piano and percussion (15')(2018) VOLD draws its material from speeded down pop music recordings. Highly detailed digital productions manipulated through simple technological processes like change of speed or reversing reveal unexpected details: dramatic inflexions resulting from the stretching of time, extreme wide vibrato, reverberant atmospheres and stray harmonics. In an attempt to creatively ‘acoustify’ plastic sonorities, VOLD breaks apart the initial meaning of mainstream love songs into a deranged otherworldly landscape. VOLD was composed with support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Music Programme

Ivo Nilsson - SMOG (10”)(2019) for Kwartludium SMOG was inspired by the novel with the same title that Italo Calvino wrote in 1958. Now, more than 60 years later, it proves to be ahead of its time not only because of the environmental crisis but also to the debate today about “fake news”. In the novel the protagonist discovers that everything in the town that he arrives to for the first time is covered by dust from the pollution. In a similar way, I wanted in my music to explore the combination of sounds that occur when the instruments activate simultaneous resonating sound sources. As if they also were covered by acoustic dust - which is also the title of the first movement. In the second movement we find a proposal for an equivalent to the cloud of the smog. And in the third and last movement there in an interpretation of the breath – both heavy and sensual. SMOG was composed with support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Music Programme

Joakim Sandgren - révélateurs mécaniques for four musicians (10’)(2017) révélateurs mécaniques was composed with support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Music Programme