Hard Times
Multisounds
[bsn,ens] 1988/89 duration: 20' solo: bsn – fl.ob.2clar.Db-clar – 2hn.trp.tbne.tuba – perc – pno
Description
Hard times – Multisound for bassoon and chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, was written last year. The composition is dedicated to my Korean friend living in Berlin, the internationally renowned composer Isang Yun. We have known each other since the Darmstadt Summer Courses in the late 1950s, have occasionally been in the same program with orchestral works (musica viva Munich, Donaueschingen, etc.), and have each in our own way gone through hard times (loosely based on Charles Dickens). The diverse possibilities for sound production developed for woodwind instruments have been intensified and systematized for the bassoon, especially in the past decade (Penazzi Ouzounoff, Riedelbauch). Multi-tones produced by wind instruments existed very early on in non-European regions. So “multisounds” on the bassoon are nothing unusual, and certainly not “matière à scandale.” My composition begins and ends with a drone sound (open fifth with added fourth), which appears repeatedly throughout the piece in different instrumentation and positions. A series of episodes featuring the solo instrument, but also the other instruments, combine with the drone sound to structure the form.
(Günther Becker)
MM 2304310
hire material
Description
Description
Hard times – Multisound for bassoon and chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, was written last year. The composition is dedicated to my Korean friend living in Berlin, the internationally renowned composer Isang Yun. We have known each other since the Darmstadt Summer Courses in the late 1950s, have occasionally been in the same program with orchestral works (musica viva Munich, Donaueschingen, etc.), and have each in our own way gone through hard times (loosely based on Charles Dickens). The diverse possibilities for sound production developed for woodwind instruments have been intensified and systematized for the bassoon, especially in the past decade (Penazzi Ouzounoff, Riedelbauch). Multi-tones produced by wind instruments existed very early on in non-European regions. So “multisounds” on the bassoon are nothing unusual, and certainly not “matière à scandale.” My composition begins and ends with a drone sound (open fifth with added fourth), which appears repeatedly throughout the piece in different instrumentation and positions. A series of episodes featuring the solo instrument, but also the other instruments, combine with the drone sound to structure the form.
(Günther Becker)
World premiere
World premiere: Düsseldorf, January 19, 1990
Discography
Veit Scholz (bassoon)
Ensemble Notabu
Cybele 360201