Polarity Maker

Polarity Maker

Polarity Maker Ensemble Klang, Instituut Nederlandais, Paris, October 2009.

Ensemble KlangThis piece was composed for Ensemble Klang, as part of the Tweede Frans-Nederlands Compositie-Concours. It was chosen as one of three final compositions for competition.

I set out to depict a slow ‘transmogrification’ of musical styles. Along the way I made this process more literal, adding consonants and vowels from the Dutch language in between the musical texture I was composing, and finally a full-blown narrative passage. All other electronic-sounds in the piece came from this linguistic source material.

I was also interested in the implications that understanding or not understanding the text would bring to the overall listening experience. Granted, comprehending the text allows one to reflect on the sounds heard earlier in a much different way than compared to a listener who only hears the text without this linguistic insight – therefore hearing the text more as sound.

The latter allows for a more open interpretation, one which is musically unified in a number of ways, but also establishes a connection between the consonants and vowels in the beginning which then change into speech during the second half of the piece. However a listener who comprehends the text, will naturally have a much more specific interpretation, one that will likely connect the sounds heard in the beginning with the somber content of the text that is featured in the second half.

GF – 2009

here’s some basic video documentation: