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Description

Commissioned by Miller Theatre at Columbia University and written for Ensemble Signal and Irvine Arditti, to whom the work is dedicated.

Musical performance has a lot to do with signs or signals, with señales, whether cues, indications from a
conductor, or the printed propositions of the score, to all of which a musician has to respond immediately
and purposefully. The product of musical performance – music – is itself loaded with signals, which we as
listeners are invited to construe. In doing so, we may well feel that many of the signals are not directed only
to us, but that we are witnessing the music’s signalling to itself: calling ahead, answering back, opening a
new course or blocking it, making a demand or reviving a memory.

In the case of this piece, through twenty minutes of mostly fast music, we have a rush of such signals,
outward and inward – and onward – projected by and to the dashing solo violin, with alertness and virtuosity
just as vital right through the ensemble, which comprises three each of winds (flute, clarinet, and horn),
strings (viola, cello, and bass), and plucked or struck instruments (harp, cimbalom doubling vibraphone and
marimba, and percussion). Melodies or exuberant flourishes may involve quarter-tones; noise effects,
especially on the wind instruments, are also part of the ceaseless flow of gestures, of señales.
There is also a subtitle, “Homenaje a Jonathan Harvey,” to whose Fourth Quartet there are oblique
references in two transitional passages. “But more than anything,” Paredes has said, “I wanted to make a
small tribute to a composer whose honesty and highly spiritual music have been inspiring to me.” At the
same time, another musician is being remembered, since much of the material derives from a solo violin
piece Paredes wrote in memory of Thomas Kakuska, long-time viola player of the Alban Berg Quartet.
The work sets out from a slow, also low introduction. Winds and strings begin by extending the notes of the
interplay between harp and cimbalom, but soon branch out, introducing ideas to be played out later –
notably, running bits of scale, in quarter tones, on strings, which come to take over the music and ring up the
curtain on the soloist. His entry, with a signal gesture that is soon repeated, speeds the music up and also
lifts it into a new register, though this is a register the others are reluctant to enter, which only adds to the
brilliance with which the violin stands out, in lively figuration alternating with developments of the quartertone
scales.

Loud dissonances from the strings with heavy bow pressure weigh the music down, but only briefly before
the violin takes off again, quietly at first, in streams of double stops based again on quarter-tone scales, and
then into wilder reaches. The ensemble, left almost speechless a while, crashes back and a slow section
ensues, initially dominated by the strings, subsequently featuring dialogue between the strings with harp
plus vibes and the wind, with “whistle tones” from the flute. Out of this comes a swirling dance into another
dialogue, between excited static harmonies on harp, marimba, and low strings on the one side and quartertone
double stops from the soloist on the other.

At roughly the halfway point, a brief recall of the slow section disappears off the top edge of the pitch
spectrum and gives way to a long fast passage developing the ideas further. There is just a short break, after
which the quarter-tone scales return. Then the soloist goes off into airy flights, prompted—signalled—by the
ensemble. The cadenza eventually has the cimbalom joining in, to convey the violin back among the other
instruments for the work’s climax and aftermath. (Paul Griffiths)

Details

Categories
Duration
20 minutes
Scoring
1 Flute (=piccolo=bass flute), 1 B-flat Clarinet (=A Clarinet=Bass Clarinet), 1 Horn in F, 2 Percussion, 1 Bongo, 1 Chinese Gong, 2 Cymbals, 1 Guiro, 1 Maracas, 1 Sleigh Bells, 1 Tambourine, 2 Tam-tam, 2 Temple Bell, 5 Temple Blocks, 2 Timpani, 2 Tom-Tom, 1 Triangle, 1 Vibraphone, 1 Bamboo Wind Chimes, 1 Marimba, 1 Harp, 1 Viola, 1 Violoncello, 1 Double bass
Composition date
2012

Recordings

Señales Irvine Arditti, violin, Ensemble Signal, Brad Lubman, conductor, Alberto Rosado, piano, ensemble recherche, Adrián Sandi, bass clarinet 26th April 2016

Performances

25 January 2022 Hochschule für Musik Würzburg

Irvine Arditti (violin), with Ensemble Neue Musik conducted by Robert Platz

6 April 2020

Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY,  USA

Irvine Arditti, violin; Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble conducted by Brad Lubman

24 February 2020

Lauba Art Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia

Irvine Arditti, violin

Cantus Ensemble conducted by Berislav Šipuš

22 September 2019

Mishkenot Shaananim Music Centre, Jerusalem

Israel Contemporary Players              

Zsolt Nagy – conductor

Irvine Arditti  violin

Beáta Móri  cimbalom

21 September 2019

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Israel Contemporary Players              

Zsolt Nagy – conductor

Irvine Arditti  violin

Beáta Móri  cimbalom

22 November 2017

St Paul’s Church, Huddersfield

 Irvine Arditti violin, London Sinfonietta conducted by Martin Brabbins

8 June 2014

Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, University of Buffalo

Ensemble Signal with Irvine Arditti (solo violin), cond. Brad Lubman

12 May 2012

Miller Theatre, Columbia University School of the Arts, USA

Ensemble Signal with Irvine Arditti (violin) cond. Brad Lubman