Due cose belle ha il mondo: l’amore e la morte…

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 Brewaeys 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…