In mia vita da vuolp

“In meinem Leben als Fuchs / war ich alles und alles / war ich auch das Licht / die Sonne mein Antlitz / makellos …” [In my life as a fox / I was everything and everything / I was also the light / the sun my countenance / unblemished ...”] The fascinating poetry of the Swiss poet Leta Semadeni is the starting point of Beat Furrer’s In mia vita da vuolp (first performance: 14.9.2019 Rümlingen with Rinnat Moriah [soprano] and Marcus Weiss [saxophone]). The composer has set five texts from the poet’s collection of the same name; the other titles are “Erinnerung an ein erschlagenes Pferd” , “Kasimir hat Liebeskummer”, “Im Weltraum”, “In den Nächten” – all equally enigmatic and rich in imagery. Beat Furrer has expanded the tonal range even further than before to reflect the saxophone’s richness of colour: a single inexorable glissando draws the sound into the abyss in the first of these allegories of death, and in the downwards figurations other sonorities constantly emerge in the saxophone. Like a shadow which accompanies the singer in ever-differing manifestations, the instrument colours the singing in the many different playing techniques which unfold. “In den Nächten / am Rande des Dorfes / wo ich wohne / am Rande der Dinge / schnappen / die Klingen / des Winters / nach mir” [“In the nights / at the edge of the village / where I live / at the edge of things / the sounds / of winter / snap / after me”] – ends the first song.  At the end the voice part seems to disappear into the saxophone multiphonics with complex harmonies.


Ensemble piece with clarinet for Donaueschingen

Beat Furrer devotes his new work for clarinet and ensemble for the Ensemble intercontemporain to a closely-related, yet fundamentally different instrument.  It is about the “line of the clarinet, about the appearance of this solo instrument. Everything becomes a part of this line.” The splintering of the solo part into completely different sound qualities takes place in the first phase of the work. The clarinet is coloured in its linear movement by individual instruments which join in. In the overall formal process a splintering of the solo part into complex tonal structures takes place. Two structures lead into each other, one linear and one “kaleidoscope-like”. These multiple intertwined layers aim to create a postponement of temporalities. The piece develops into a unison, into a quasi cadenza at the conclusion, in which the whole ensemble opens into the line of the clarinet.

MLM
(from [[t]akte 2/2019)