Bernd Franke: open doors – for bandoneon(*) and orchestra (2002)
UA: 21.1.2003, Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, MDR-Sinfonieorchester,
Per Arne Glorvigen/Bandoneon, Leitung: Rolf Gupta
Besetzung: 1 (auch Picc.).1.1. (auch Es-Klar.).1 — 1.1.Flghr.1.1. — Hf. — Kl. — P.S (3) —
4.4.3.3.1 (oder größer) — Zuspielband (CD)
Dauer: 17`
Verlag: C. F. Peters Frankfurt
http://www.edition-peters.de
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April 2002: two weeks in New York, staying in the bedlam of downtown Manhattan. Rehearsals and Première of Petrel Seascapes for Soprano and Orchestra with the New Juilliard Ensemble, lectures in the Manhattan School and the Juilliard School, visits to musicians and artists as well as to my former Tanglewood Professor, Lukas Foss, who is now 80 years old and still flying once a week to Boston to teach (Performance of Contemporary Music), met the 94 year old Elliott Carter during an impressive concert of works by Carter and Cage –in the middle of working on my piece for Bandoneon and Orchestra- have two especially far-reaching and striking experiences:
a fantastic performance at the Met of Alban Berg’s Lulu in the Three Act version under Levine (use a quotation in open doors) and the atmosphere of the New York subway:
when the door opens in each station you hear new and outstanding buskers from all round the world, a huge web of sound, a landscape of sound « in motion »!
« To be in motion », to be open for the New, the Different, for not yet heard sound landscapes.
In May 2002 a colleague from Peters in New York recorded the sounds of the New York subway on minidisc for me, a part of which I use in my new piece for Bandoneon and Orchestra.
In June 2002 I learn from friends in Pittsburgh that a concert of « Subway Musicians from around the World » had been organised in the Lincoln Centre in New York City!
open doors, organically-growing and with aleatoric structures overlaying hierarchically directed orchestral structures, chambermusically « softens » the orchestral effect.
Bare short « phases » of 1-2 minutes are interrupted again and again by « cuts », there is no detailed development in the first part, there are just webs of sound in space….
Bernd Franke 2003
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(*) The bandoneon (or bandonion, Spanish: bandoneón) is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina,Uruguay, and Lithuania. It is an essential instrument in most tango ensembles from the traditional orquesta típica ( Latin-American term for a band which plays popular music) of the 1910s onwards, and in folk music ensembles of Lithuania.
Bandoneón – Argentina Tango
THE BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC 