Three new compositions by Miroslav Srnka explore movement: “Hejna” (Swarms) for clarinet, accordion, piano, harp and percussion, a work commissioned for the Ensemble Modern, and finally, a new string quartet.

Swarms of birds, whose formations seem to occur in a magical way, are the inspiration for new compositions by Miroslav Srnka. What actually happens in moving groups, as occurs in swarms of birds or fish and herds of cattle, is that the flows of energy function according to the principles of physics. This can be similar to the flow of patterns of movement in music. Srnka composed Hejna (Czech for swarms) for a portrait concert at the Munich Biennale in the Gasteig. It is scored for clarinet, accordion, piano, harp and percussion. A prerequisite for the overlay of patterns of movement is the possible polyphony of the instruments, the composer says: “The special thing about the scoring is the fact that apart from the clarinet, all the instruments produce several clearly-tempered voices, that is, they can portray a mass movement or undulation. The clarinet represents the melodic principle as a counterpart to this, and with its relatively quiet sound, can blend almost completely with instruments such as the accordion or vibraphone.” Hejna is about a continuum which is constantly being transformed and is flexible within itself, about the inner pulsation of the sound. And not only in terms of volume, but also of density or the direction of movement: “All these spatial parameters are realized in sound”, says the composer, “by laying the events over each other in several layers and periods of time from the fast to the slow movement.”

Miroslav Srnka investigates musical movement in acoustic space in various scorings: in his new string quartet, to be premiered in April 2011 by the Quatuor Diotima in Monte Carlo, this principle becomes apparent in another form. The possibility of the tonal merging and the individualisation of the four string instruments is sounded out: “A theme of the composition is this process of the disentangling from the mass. It is about the freedom of the voice, in assent with what sounds behind it. In the string quartet, the four related instruments merge with each other and form a collective, but also gain soloistic independence. This is based on the fact that the solo voice is free from pulsation and with it, forseeability.” Following the premiere of Coronae for solo horn by Saar Berger in December 2009, a work commissioned for the 30th anniversary of the Ensemble Modern, Srnka has now written a new work for the ensemble. He has conceived the composition, which will be premiered in January 2011 at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, as a veritable concerto for ensemble: a “virtuosic machine”, a fast, energetic, rhythmically intensive piece which is based on the idea that through the repetition and layering of rhythmic patterns, a complex sonority emerges. “Its content is about the range between the fascination for this machine and the threat it poses, between the pull of a functioning structure and its threatening overwhelming power. It’s comparable with inexorable thought sequences in the brain which can increase to a nightmare-like repetition.” Formally, behind the composition lies a consideration of the perceptibility of repetition, the question, in other words, of when a repeated musical interrelation can be identified as such. At the same time, the piece operates on the border between a concertante-soloistic game and the ensemble principle.                                         

Marie Luise Maintz
from [t]akte 2/2010