related works

Affairs III : for oboe, clarinet and bassoon / Will Eisma

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Woodwind ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring: ob cl fg

Japanese settings : for voice, flute, cello, percussion and guitar, 1985 / Walter Hekster

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring: voice fl(fl-a) perc g vc

Mere Air : for two sopranos and ensemble / Hana Ajiashvili; text by Sappho's poetry

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring: 2sopr rec gtr vla vla-gamba cemb

To whom : for soprano and ensemble, opus 23, 1973/2000 / poem by Adrian Mitchell, Peter Schat

Genre: Vocal music
Subgenre: Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring: sopr 2cl 3fg h trp pf el.g el. g-b

composition

Le cheval mort : mezzo-soprano, bass clarinet, piano, percussion: marimba + tamtam, 2 synthesizers, 4 channel tape / text: Aloysius Bertrand, Will Eisma

Author(s):
Bertrand, Aloysius (Text writer/Librettist)
Eisma, Will (Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): The compositions Le Gibet and Le Cheval Mort were set to surrealistic poems by Aloysius Bertrand from his collection: Gaspard de la nuit, septième livre, Pièces détachées. The wonderful ambience derived from the poems inspired me to set some of these to music. The text of the poems expresses the dramatic environment of a battlefield and a graveyard. This lends itself easily to natural nocturnal sounds, bloodcurdling whistling and cracking noises. This is, however, something I wanted to avoid. I have tried to create an unreal atmosphere in my music. In Le Cheval Mort the electronics are prominent, especially in the second half of the work. It was written for the music festival in Witten, Germany and received its première there in 1976. - WILL EISMA