Chasse-Neige

Chasse-Neige for violin, viola, cello and piano by Sauli Zinovjev.

Chasse-Neige was written for Ensemble Recherche, who premiered the piece on 6 July 2014 at the Time of Music Festival, in Viitasaari, Finland. The performers were Melise Mellinger (violin), Barbara Maurer (viola), Åsa Åkerberg (cello) and Jean-Pierre Collot (piano).

Performance Notes

• The trills are always semi-tones unless marked with a sharp sign indicating a whole-tone trill.
• Accidentals are per bar in the whole score.
• The metronome marks are only suggestions and may be varied.

String instruments

The use of romantic vibrato is a very essential part of the mood of this composition. Still, it is advisable to save some vibrato for the places that the player finds musically and emotionally very important by playing some notes completely without vibrato as well.  For example, long notes starting from a very quiet dynamic, and melodies accompanying something more prolific in another instrument are best played "cooler" to add some transparency to the performance.

Piano

Pedalling:

• The use of the pedal in this piece comes from romantic piano literature. The pedallings are mostly marked, but the player should be encouraged to listen delicately to the pedallings and use variants of different kinds of pedallings according to their musical taste. Special attention should be taken to the places where the pedal should be kept pressed to increase the duration of the sound over the rests or empty bars.
• Marking conPed indicates a completely free use of pedal suitable to the harmony and melodic figures. The choice of using una corda is free.

Extended playing techniques in piano part:

• Crossed note-heads: Damp the strings with the palm (or finger tips, depending on the build of the grand piano) very close to the keyboard end of the strings. The resulting sound should include a clear pitch with a "damp" and very "echoing" attack.

Duration: c.12 minutes