composer
Rudolf Escher was a composer who wrote for the ear, rather than to conform to some extra-musical principle. He composed a relatively small oeuvre of orchestral pieces, chamber music and ...
related works
Largo from the Sinfonia in memoriam Maurice Ravel : for orchestra, 1940 / Rudolf Escher
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
4344 3sax 3321 timp 2perc cel 2hp str
Memory Scars : for ensemble and electronics / Alexander Khubeev
Genre:
Electronical music
Subgenre:
Gemengd ensemble (2-12 spelers) met elektronica
Scoring:
fl cl-b sax-a vn vc db pf tape
Tango : voor twee piano's / Jan Pouwels
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Piano
Scoring:
2pf
In questi giorni : for mezzo-soprano and orchestra / Douglas Knehans
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and orchestra
composition
Sinfonia per dieci strumenti : 1973-1975 / Rudolf Escher
Contains:
Ritmo teso in tempo moderato
Passaggio (Lento)
L'istesso tempo
Vivo e leggiero
Description:
Program note (English): (Première: 2-5-1976 - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam - Members Concertgebouworkest, Reinbert de Leeuw, conducting) -
In choosing the instrumentation the five-stringed double bass instead of the four-strings is, aside from oboe d'amore instead of the ordinary oboe, unusual. The usage of a five-stringed double bass is solely based on the need of producing three low tones which is just missed by the smaller and in general superior sounding in quality range of the four-string double bass.
The importance of the double bass part becomes clear from the fact that during approximately one sixth of the total duration of the work, it doubles with the violoncello, bassoon and horn. In the remaining part the double bass represents a completely independent voice in the musical testimony.
This independence becomes more apparent in the position of the double bass in the sound picture, it is not banished to cellar and basement, but may also move through to higher levels. In the form of the Sinfonia, the third slow movement is central.
The work becomes completed formed by a structure of melodic dialogues, a game of calls, questions and answers. Melismas, varying from very short two tone signals to long melodic arabesques, recall each other, change and disappear. A melodic drifting away into desolate, very desolate musical silence. The eventful first movement ('ritmo teso in tempo moderato': strained rhythmicality in moderate tempo) accentuates, after it is sounds, silence. As to form, this movement refers to the sonata form, but since there is an ongoing principle of variation and absolutely no period is either literally, the so-called reprise is therefore no (unaltered) recurrence of a exposition, but in all components an alteration.
A short second movement of just two minutes ('Passagio': transition) is a slow, metric-fixed five voiced canon for string quartet alone; this strays from the melodic rhythmic and polyrhythmic disorder of movement I and leads to the silence and the loose rhythmicality of movement III.
The fourth movement ('vivo e leggiero': lively and light) arises from the silence and in the last minutes also ends entirely in silence. Although there are no eligible musical dance-like structures, this movement suggests much dancing. Even a distant, low drum is heard. The term 'Sinfonia' was chosen on the one hand to indicate the entity of the total conception, on the other hand to protect the character of the piece against associations which inevitable rise from the term 'symphony'.
The short score of this work, which materialized mainly during vacations, was completed in May of 1975; the score was ready in March 1976. - RUDOLF ESCHER