Orchestra
✉️ If you wish to perform the piece, please contact me
Duration: 7′
Year: 2023
2 fl, 2 ob, 2 bcl, bn, cbn . 4 hn, 3 tpt, tbn, btbn, tba . timp, 2 perc . vn I, vn II, va, vc, db
Premiered by Orquestra Sinfónica da ESMAE conducted by Ivo Venkov at Teatro Helena Sá e Costa
My tiny little piece is called this way because it functions like different canvas where the initial mote is always present. We could speak of orchestral variations on a gesture but not in the sense of traditional orchestral purposes because this gesture/texture is not explored in different combinations of instruments. The recognizable and present mote is related with different things in orchestra that happen in parallel or reinforce the gesture.
The initial gesture was inspired in a drawing of Wassily Kandinsky in his book «Point, Line and Plane». In this drawing, there is a straight line that is interweaved by a curve line. I thought in bass clarinet 1 as the straight line (or the most straight) and the bass clarinet 2 and bassoon as curve lines, dependents of a main line.
The compound melody in trumpets and trombone in the slow part is the balance: a fluctuating melody that goes nowhere. It is the antithesis of the clear direction of the main gesture. It ups or it downs.
My melodic material is brought from a set of numbers that are the result of operations with prime numbers. These numbers produce a sensation of irregularity and a constant variation. My tiny little piece is the first piece working with the sonification (translation of data in musical or sound parameters) of that set of numbers.
Luís Neto da Costa 