related works
Iter Arcanum : for organ / Joey Roukens
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Organ
Scoring:
org
Concert-ouverture : op. 56, 1955 / Marius Flothuis
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
2fl pic ob ob(eh) 2cl cl-b 2fg sax-a 4h 3 trp 3trb tb timp perc hp str
Turn the River : for chamber orchestra / Victoria Vita Polevá
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
2fl 2ob 2cl 2fg h timp cel str
Concerto : pour orchestre / Hans Kox
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
2222 3330 timp perc str
composition
Fast movement and Epilogue : for chamber orchestra / Joey Roukens
Author(s):
Roukens, Joey
(Composer)
Description:
‘Fast Movement and Epilogue’ is a piece about ‘fastness’ and virtuosity. We live in a time in which everything seems to go fast, everything seems to change fast and many people seem to be in a constant state of rush and hurry. However, I feel that this fast pace and hectic nature of contemporary life is something which is only rarely reflected in contemporary (classical) music, in which truly fast-paced pieces seem to be scarce. Even though in earlier eras, composers like Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, Liszt, and so on, were all masters of the kind of fast and virtuoso music that is seldom being written today.
So when I got the commission to write a piece for Tokyo Sinfonietta, I set out to write a highly virtuoso piece that is among the fastest music I have written. Consequently, it turned out to be fiendishly difficult to play. The first ten or so minutes of this 14-minute piece should sound like a high-speed roller-coaster ride, requiring the musicians to maintain high energy playing and very fast tempi throughout. The music is characterized by driving, syncopated rhythms (that sometimes clearly refer to certain pop genres), insistent ostinati, moments of playfulness, lightness, humor and at times a Stravinskian bite. A contrasting slow, quiet and dreamy epilogue concludes the piece, putting the fast music in a slightly different light.