Program Notes
Davidovsky describes combining the violin with the piano in this recent composition as his attempt to make two totally different instruments work together acoustically without the benefit of the harmonic blending that would be automatic in tonal music. According to Davidovsky, the violin is by nature "a fly" and the piano "an elephant". To compose each moment within each phrase then he must find the pieces of sound that will "embed one instrument into the other".
One kind of counterpoint in Davidovsky's music thus consists of the simultaneity of a melodic/rhythmic idea and a timbre/dynamic idea (what Bulent Arel liked to call "timbre melody"). In the opening of the Duo Capriccioso, the timbre line consists of an opening midrange violin tremolo-like motive which, as it opens out, adds harmonics that create, at once, abrupt shifts in timbre and leaps in register. This violin music sets up the piano entrance by increasing the energy and focusing on the pitch "A". As the violin reaches the "A", the number of timbres explodes. The first A is a left-hand pizzicato. The next attack is a regular pizz., the next bowed, and finally, the same A is played as intensely as possible, tripled on three of the violin's four strings. With all of this timbral insistence on one pitch, the piano is able to sneak in softly, playing the very same A, as if it were simply part of the violin. As the music continues, the piano adds it share of mercurial changes in timbre, including notes "stopped" by touching and muting the piano strings and pizz, plucking inside the piano.
Program Notes by Eric Chasalow
Friends
Contemporary
Program Notes
Home
Biography
Reviews
Repertoire
Performances
Management
Photos
Discography
Audio/Video
