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Liebestod (1999-2000) |
Liebestod was commissioned by the Fonds voor de scheppende Toonkunst for the Malle Symen Quartet, and was written between September 1999 and May 2000.
The recorder, in the instrumental symbolism of the 17th century, was used to evoke both amorous and funereal atmospheres, even in the same piece (John Blow’s Venus and Adonis for example), a circumstance which lies behind the dark intimacy of the present composition. My perception of the physical nature of the instrument and its relationship to the player are the primary factors influencing its material, particularly the unmediated contact of mouth and fingers with the vibrating air column, and the subtle sound-shaping possibilities thereby created.
It is not a composition for “instruments and electronics” but one in which the relationship of instrument to microphone, and (artificial) expansions and contractions of the acoustical space around each instrument, are composed into the poetic fabric of the music.
© Richard Barrett