for 2 sax, trombone, electric guitar, piano, vibraphone
2012 | duration: 7′
Published by BabelSCORES | ISMN : 979-0-2325-5224-8

Paul Klee, Pÿramide, 1930. Bern, Zentrum Paul Klee

In December 2011 I visited an exhibition dedicated to the Swiss painter Paul Klee by La Citè de la Musique of Paris and was deeply impressed. This exposition, titled “Polyphonies,” focused on Klee’s work and its relation to music. Klee was also a musician and music was at the forefront of his thought and artistic investigations. In the 1930’s he endeavored to integrate musical notions into his painting, including one concept that particularly interests me: polyphony through transparency.
In his 1930 painting Pÿramide, shapes also function as colored filters, windows onto both something else and the objects themselves to be observed. Our eyes face simultaneously different and complementary perspectives and depths.

My piece for Ensemble Klang is an homage to Paul Klee and a study on light, opacity, and sonic transparency. Ensemble Klang has a very wide and special sound palette that goes from the extreme transparency of a lens to the dense impenetrability of a wall.
I wanted to create different aural perspectives with layers and shadowing techniques and to explore the properties of sound in terms of veiling and revealing.
In Pÿramide, a Paul Klee there are landscapes characterized by mobile foregrounds and backgrounds, by sound textures with different levels of opacity that work as filters that either allow through or obscure what is hidden behind them. In visual terms, my research focuses on how can the light become the focal point.

Notes
Commissioned by Ensemble Klang
with financial support from the Nederlands Fonds Podiumkunsten NL

Audio
Recorded live 02.06.2012 in Korzo Theater, Den Haag | ENSEMBLE KLANG

Performances
31.05.2012 Ensemble Klang, Smart Project Space, Amsterdam (Premiere)
Erik-Jan de Wit (sax), Michiel van Dijk (sax) , Anton van Houten (trombone), Pete Harden (guitar), Saskia Lankhoorn (piano), Joey Marijs (vibraphone).
02.06.2012 Ensemble Klang, Korzo Theater, Den Haag
07.06.2012 Ensemble Klang, Gaudeamus, Huis a/d Werf, Utrecht
19.07.2012 Nadar Ensemble, Darmstad Ferienkurse
03.02.2013 Freon Ensemble, Atlante Sonoro XXI, Roma
12.09.2013 Ensemble Klang, Muziekgebouw Frits Philips, Eindhoven
14.09.2013 Ensemble Klang, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
04.05.2024 Freon Ensemble, Atlante Sonoro, Roma
21.09.2024 Ensemble Klang, Musica Festival Strasbourg 

Visit the website of the Paul Klee Zentrum