violinist composer conductor
Little Harmonic Tesseract
hyperbolisation for ensemble or chamber orchestra
based on Kleines Harmonisches Labyrinth (formerly BWV 591)
Ensemble: Fl. (dbl. picc.), Ob., Cl. in Bb (dbl. Bcl in Bb), Cbs., H. in F, Tp. in C, Trb., Perc., E. guit. (optional), Pno, 2 V-lins, V-la, V-cello, DB
Duration: 7 minutes
Commission: New European Ensemble, The Hague, with the support of Fonds Podiumkunsten & Gemeente Den Haag.
First performance: 23 Feb 2023, Tuinzaal of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, New European Ensemble, conductor: Vlad Maistorovici
Romanian premiere: May 2024, Bucharest Radio Hall, Bucharest Radio Chamber Orchestra, conductor: Vlad Maistorovici
Score and parts available in versions for
15 players:
https://www.universaledition.com/en/Works/Little-Harmonic-Tesseract/P0301143
chamber orchestra:
https://www.universaledition.com/en/Works/Little-Harmonic-Tesseract/P0301177
at:
Little harmonic Tesseract is based on the Little Harmonic Labyrinth chorale, formerly BWV 591 and more recently attributed to J. S. Bach’s contemporary J. D. Heinichen. Inspired by Douglas R. Hofstadter’s book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid I asked myself: if the chorale were a cube, what would it sound like as a tesseract? Short of Christopher Nolan’s cinematic wizardry the tesseract can only be visualised through an “impossible” geometric representation, as in Escher’s “impossible” worlds. As such, the musical space inhabited by the chorale's polyphony is “hyperbolised” on all axes to create a folded multidimensional soundscape.
Composed for the 125th anniversary exhibition “Escher – Andere Wereld” at the Kunstmuseum, Den Haag, part of “Metamorfosen: A Musical Journey into the World of MC Escher”