Beat Furrer
born 6 Dec. 1954 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland
First performance:
15 Oct 2020 in Munich by Ilya Gringolts
Swiss premiere:
6 September 2021 in Lucerne also by Ilya Gringolts
Recording:
The recording of the world premiere is available on Youtube.
Misty beginning... noises, breath (in bass flute and accordion).
Barely perceptible structures and shapes.
Deep bass sound of the winds.
Amorphous sounds push upwards into the space.
Then high notes, identifiable as the soloist's violin notes, become audible, slowly moving downwards above the amorphous sound world.
The two sound worlds, orchestra and violin, move towards each other as if they wanted to meet and merge in the middle. Or even cross.
Over time, rudiments of a melody seem to emerge from the violin.
But nothing is clear.
On the contrary, suddenly a wild outburst of the orchestra,
that destroys this mysterious initial development. No crossing succeeds.
Short silence after the commotion.
General fright.
Trembling of the violin, halting enquiries in a restless violin recitative, which increases.
Deep orchestral beats, novel brass sound combinations, wild orchestral snatches.
The violin struggles for presence, falters.
A trombone note - long and serious, decisive - , the orchestra joins in and slowly fades away, amorphous sounds as at the beginning.
The violin joins in again, inquiringly.
A new merging of amorphous sounds, but marked by a carrying beauty...
Another short outburst, a trembling of the violin on a constant tone, splinters of a violin tone... as it were a search by the violin for its own identity and timbre.
Then a slow fading away.
Wildly aggressive violin recitative.
Highest agitation, a bracing against despair, rebellion.
Apocalyptic mood.
As if the violin wanted to save itself.
The orchestra, splintered into a thousand fragments and sounds, takes over the wild movement, pursues the violin and drives it before it.
The violin rises to the highest registers, its wildly virtuosic splintering of notes, a kind of rushed chaffing out of desperation. Wild runs.
Broad expanses of sound underpin the wild speech-like violin outburst.
Breathlessness and back and forth between orchestra and wild violin figures.
Then, unexpectedly, a break-off!
Once again, the violin starts with its wild outbursts and figures.
It speaks, talks, almost shouts, angrily, and braces itself against the orchestra.
It calms down only slowly. Her aggression is absorbed by orchestral sounds....
Everyone slowly finds their way back to calm, now and then the desperate aggression of the violin twitches again. Great leaps, the beginnings of melodies. Back to the tone in the highest register
of the beginning.
Woodwind dissonances overlay the whole, deep bass tones (and grounded accordion sounds) settle under the cloud of sound and the whole dies away soothingly.
The sounds become more beautiful and spherical... fading away in memory of the beginning.