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).
Thierry Escaich
Translated by John Tyler Tuttle
- Aria (piano)
- Cantus I (cello)
- Cantus II (harp)
- Cantus III (oboe)
- City Lights (clarinet or saxophone)
- Étude flash-back (piano)
- Étude jazz (piano)
- Études baroques (piano)
- Études impressionnistes (piano)
- Jeux de doubles (piano)
- Les Litanies de l'ombre (piano)
- Lutte (saxophone)
- Nun komm (violin)
- Prélude et Fugue (accordion)
- Après l’Aurore
- Capriccios (clarinet/accordion)
- Cérémonial
- Choral’s Dream
- Comme l’écho d’une fantaisie
- Ground I
- Ground II
- Ground III
- Ground IV
- Ground V
- Ground VI
- Introït à l’Office des ténèbres
- Le Bal
- Lettres mêlées
- Psalmodie à l’Office des ténèbres
- Scènes de bal
- Scènes d’enfant au crépuscule
- Short Stories
- Sopra la Folia
- Spring’s Dance
- Tango virtuoso (arr. for clarinets)
- Tango virtuoso
- Tanz-Fantasie trp & organ
- Tanz-Fantasie trp & piano
- Trio américain (“Suppliques”)
- Trois Intermezzi
- Variations gothiques
- Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra
- Concerto for Organ No. 1
- Concerto for Organ No. 2
- Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
- Concerto for Violin, Oboe and Orchestra
- Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
- Élégie
- Fantaisie concertante
- La Nuit des Chants (Concerto for viola)
- Le Chant des ténèbres (clar. & strings)
- Le Chant des ténèbres (solo sax & 12 sax)
- Miroir d’ombres
- Quatre Visages du temps (Concerto for Organ No. 3)
- Résurgences
- Scherzo fantasque