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Entstellt (1990-93) |
picc/tbn/angkung/sirtar (amplified)/12-str guitar (amplified)/str (10111), all players doubling perc except picc, andkung and vc - 7' 30"
'Enstellt' is the final part of Richard Barrett's five-piece work, 'Negatives' completed in 1993. It is the literal negative of the opening movement 'delta', where this point of departure is returned to, only now found to be a ruin (as the title implies, meaning disfigured, distorted etc). This terribly poignant concept is relentlessly worked through, all pitch content slowly becoming erased, with the majority of instrumentalists turning instead to percussion instruments.
The exceptions are the piccolo and the 'cello, the most significant characters throughout, who continue defiantly to the end, ultimately disorientated and lost (the instruction in the score reads 'blank'). The piece is enclosed within lines of poetry, preceded by Pierre Reverdy, finishing with Paul Celan. 'Enstellt' is dedicated to guitarist Daryl Buckley, director of the Elision Ensemble, who commissioned the work and had it's British premiere on its own on 12 December 1996 at the Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire. Negatives as a whole was premiered two weeks earlier.