Alliage III

Programme note:Alloy III for Violin, Cello, Classical Accordion, and two KoklesThe instruments of this quintet are very different in appearance and in the way of playing as well as toneproduction: strings to be bowed, strings to be plucked confronted with the airborne tone of the Accordion. Theorigins and the traditions of the instruments are also very diversified reaching from traditional folkmusic (theKokle) and popular music (the Accordion) to art music of the classical tradition (the Violin and Cello).Acknoledging these references and connotations I refrain nevertheless from an obvious ‘casting’ of theinstruments, since I have always been fascinated by the less evident, bytransitions and gradual displacement,by the intangible places between one and the other. I search for this ‘terrain vague’ of fruitfull incertainty andpermanent genesis.To arrive there, I have in this piece created a musical expression, which makes hidden relations and unexploredsonorous paths come forward between the different sound worlds of the instruments. Bringing together thesemusical substances, I look for something deeper than just common sounds: a fresh musical place. And the livelyand bright sound world that emerges form this instrumental and textural ’in-between’ I associate to alloys, inparticular the silvery amalgamations of mercury.The work was composed to musicians from the Latvian ensmble Altera Veritas and of Ensemble Aleph (France)as a part of the project European Instrumental Laboratory.Niels Rosing-Schow