Biography

Alberto POSADAS

Work(s)

" Kerguelen "

For trio and orchestra

Universal Music

SÉLECTION 2015

WORLD PREMIERE
10/20/2013, Donaueschinger, All. By soloists trio of the Ensemble Recherche (Martin Fahlenbock, flutes - Jaime González, oboe - Shizuyo Oka, clarinets) and the SWR - Sinfonie Orchester Baden-Baden & Freiburg, dir. François-Xavier Roth.

NOTES
Kerguelen is the name of an underwater volcanic land almost entirely covered by the Indian Ocean, located at approximately 3 000 km south of Australia. Only a small portion emerges from the surface of the ocean, thus forming the archipelago of the same name.

The choice of this title results from the fact that this geological formation described perfectly the relation established between the soloists’ trio and the orchestra. The dialectical relation characterizing the concerting music from its beginnings to our days is here avoided. On the contrary, a relation where the trio is detached from the orchestra is required, playing the “tutti” like a “plain” on which the musical material is based.

By establishing this relation, one fully determines the choice of the musical material.

The “acrobatic” virtuosity usually associated with the form of the concerto is replaced here by a less apparent virtuosity which lacks a certain theatrical aspect. In Kerguelen, virtuosity requires a great ability in control of the emission of the sound by the airstream. Thus, the materials are closely related to the instruments, thought and designed for them.

This manner of working comes from a concept which I call the “micro-instrumentation” or “generating instrumentation”. This concept tends to explore intermediate spaces which exist in a microscopic way (in terms of tone and timbre), between the conventional sounds for which these instruments were created. And these microscopic materials resulting from a process of research of these instruments become generating structures since, in a certain manner, they impose their own temporality.

In the case of Kerguelen, this process of research was developed in collaboration with the soloists’ trio of the “Ensemble Recherche of Freiburg”.

The trio is treated like a single instrument, as homogeneous as possible. And it is obviously a consequence of this escape of the dialectical relation. In fact, there are not three soloists but only one and single polyphonic formation divided into three, each one of it being treated in a multi-phonic way. This multi-phonic approach is fully incarnated in the “cadenza”, always far away from the traditional concept, not only for selected material but also for the explicit linearity which tends to explore all the intermediate spaces found thanks to the techniques of micro-instrumentation.