Official website of Thierry Escaich, composer and organist
Sextet
2015
Clarinet, viola, cello, bass, piano & timpani
10 mn
• World premiere: 31/07/2015, Alpensia Concert Hall, Great Mountains Music Festival, Pyeongchang (South Corea) – Jerry Chae (clarinet), Hung-Wei Huang (viola), Sangmin Park (cello), Michinori Bunya (bass), Tae-Hyung Kim (piano), Adrien Perruchon (timpani).
• Commissioned by Great Moutains Music Festival.
• Publisher: Gérard Billaudot.
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Composed from thematic material in the Concerto for Orchestra (2015), Sextet is the combination of the passacaglia structure and a quadripartite form in which one goes from one part to another without solution of continuity.
This passacaglia is structured by a theme of twelve notes divided into three four-note motifs, but each of the three motifs generates well-differentiated thematic characters that run throughout the piece. This somewhat chromatic theme contrasts with a more diatonic motif, which, from the beginning, interrupts the former, generating more luminous harmonies of fourths and syncopated rhythmic figures. The dialectics between these two sound worlds is going to give structure to the sextet's form, reinforced by a particular instrumentation based on rather low instrumental timbres (double basses, timpani) and a search for sound fusion through various playing methods (string harmonics, broken sounds in the clarinets, or the use of the piano's strings).