Composed in

1986

For

Piano solo, Chamber Orchestra and live-electronics, revised in 1988

Instrumentation

1/1/1/T + B Sax./1 – 1/1/1/0 – 3 Perc. – Electr. Guit. – Bass Guit. – H – Strings (1/1/1/1/1).

Duration

12’

First performance

February 5, 1986 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Luc BREWAEYS, piano. Ensemble Itinéraire conducted by Michel SZWIERCZEWSKI.

First Performance of the final version

September 21, 1988 at the Spectrum in Montreal (Canada). Luc BREWAEYS, piano. Ensemble of the Contemporary Music Society of Québec conducted by Walter BOUDREAU.

Commissioned by

Ensemble Itinéraire (F)

Dedicated to

Birgit Van Cleemput

Commercial recordings

Megadisc MDC 7828/29 (2cd)

Publisher

Donemus

Luc on “Due Cose belle ha il mondo : l’amore e la morte” :

This work was commissioned by the French Ensemble Itinéraire after a successful performance I gave with them – with myself at the piano – of “Trajet” in 1985. I wrote the piece in an incredibly short amount of time, and got ready some days only before the first performance. In general I was quite satisfied of the piece except of the ‘cadenza’ for the piano. When the piece was to be performed again on the occasion of my “Prix de Musique Contemporaine de Flandres – Québec” in 1988, I took the time to revise it quite extensively. I wrote a much more important, funny (and difficult) “interrupted” cadenza and I lengthened the “Gagaku” sequence, of which I was very happy, for my original aim was to recompose this kind of Japanese Court Music without using any of the original instruments : this was analogue to my First Symphony in which I wanted to write electronic music without electronics at all… I finally made some slight changes to the ending section. The live-electronics are quite extensive. There are 4 Ring-modulators, 1 for the piano, 1 for the percussion/harp/guitars group, 1 on the delay track and finally 1 for the complete orchestra (used only at the climax before the last section). Formally, the piece falls into 5 very clearly differentiated sections, framed by an introduction and a “Coda”. It’s like a little journey in the world of sounds…