It is very soft, intimate and concentrated piece, quite ascetic in texture - mostly just a polyphonic lace of two or three flexible melodic lines. Due to widely extended phrases, the piece is filled with permanent melodic tension, vocal nature of which gives the main impulse to all the elements of sound, including the percussion part. Forgotten (lost) shapes of sad folk tunes flash and escape in a labyrinth of sometimes strange, full of melancholy and nostalgia singing. The leading role is given to accordion, its voices are caught up by the saxophone/clarinet lengthened with echo of high contrabass/cello harmonics; brief ritornelli of percussion become the integral part of this interchange of melodic ideas. Each element of the texture grows from the previous as its branch and in turn becomes the source of the next element; all together they build chains of sound events that contain certain hidden sense, like in a dream or a mystical ritual. The performers should attentively listen to each other to clearly feel mutual dependence of all sound elements directed by overall melodic proliferation.
Alexander Shchetynsky
© 2000 by Alexander Shchetynsky