Ictus: 'Vortex Temporum

7:30 PM: Introduction with Tom Pauwels (Ictus), Daan Janssens and Stefan Prins (composers)

'Vortex Temporum' ('Maelstrom of Time') by Gérard Grisey was created by the Ensemble Recherche at the Witten Festival in 1996. It is a demanding, three-movement work for mixed sextet and has been part of the icons of spectral chamber music. Spectral composers rely on the overtones that, by analogy with the visible 'spectrum', together determine the 'colour' of a musical sound. In their poetics of metamorphosis, it is the cloudiest moments that are zoomed out, enlarged – moments when the musical material seems to break, moments when the skin tears. The very special opening sentence of the work, stolen from Ravel's 'Daphnis et Chloé', has a perfectly minimalist aspect: it is a pure, almost neutral form. The more neutral the material, the clearer the development: Grisey's ideal was a transparent project within the chiaroscuro of timbres that merge. This makes 'Vortex Temporum' a real 'predator', a work that bites its listener, that overpowers him from the first note.

PRELATED PROGRAM: NADAR

Simon Steen-Andersen (1976): 'Besides' for amplified piano, violin and piccolo, and muted string trio

Simon Steen-Andersen: 'Rrendered' for pianist and two assistants