Wunderkammer – Festival 33,7

Francesca Verunelli (*IT, 1979)
Wo.man sitting at the piano I (2019) for flute and piano player – 13’
“It is not human hands that touch the keys in Francesca Verunelli’s ‘Wo/man sitting at the piano’, but an ingeniously programmed automaton. Many composers have been fascinated by the ‘player piano’ – an instrument like this leaves even the most skilful pianist’s fingers far behind. Verunelli calls it ‘electronic music without electronic sound’. In contrast, she puts a human virtuoso on the flute. The contrast could hardly be greater, and yet the two worlds seem to merge.” (Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, translated by Jil Hamm for United Instruments of Lucilin)

Clara Iannotta (*IT, 1983)
dead wasps in the jam-jar (i) (2014-2015) for violin and electronics – 3’
dead wasps in the jam jar (i) is one of four pieces commissioned by violinist Yuki Numata Resnick to nestle amongst the movements of J.S. Bach’s Partita no. 1 for solo violin. Iannotta’s piece focuses on the Double to the Corrente, replacing
Bach’s running scales with glissandos retaining elements of his rhythmic proportions and directions. Over this loosely Bachian framework is draped a range of noise effects, created in particular by different bow pressures and circular paperclips attached to the instrument’s strings. In this way, dead wasps sounds little like Bach while hinting at his phrasing and melodic contours: his music’s skeletal structure.

Yang Song (*CN, 1985)
Poem (2016) for prepared piano and computer – 9’
This “Poem for Piano and Computer” is inspired by an ancient Chinese plucked instrument, the Guqin. The electronic part of this piece was created using recordings of original piano samples. While some sound material of the electronic part and the original instrument sound similar, some are modified and manipulated by adding sounds from the Guqin’s musical character such as glissando and pizzicato. At times, the computer part relies on and amplifies the piano part, and sometimes has its own independent “voice”. The piece aims to portray the traditional sound acoustic of the Guqin, as if to establish an atmosphere that exists in a poetry dialogue between the piano and the computer.

Genoël Von Lilienstern (*DE, 1979)
KOER (2022) for viola and electronics – 15’
Co-commissioned by Philharmonie Luxembourg and United Instruments of Lucilin
Genoël von Lilienstern’s Koer is a new version of a 2019 piece for cello and electronics entitled Dom. The viola stands in for the cello. In Kœr the electronics simply amplify, reverberate and distort the sounds produced by the performer, long tones that explore all the registers of the viola.

With: André Pons-Valdès (violon), Danielle Hennicot (viola), Sophie Deshayes (flute), Pascal Meyer (piano)