“BEHIND THE WORD”: PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
2023
Projected video loop: sound track to be determined…
“BEHIND THE WORD” starts with a series of 5 concerts, presented as an interdisciplinary performance in close collaboration with composer Hibiki Mukai and visual artist Adrian Walton Smith. The repertoire of this program is centered around Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, especially arranged as a gift for our ensemble by the Basque composer Joel Merah.
In this multi-media program, we are juxtaposing basic elements of music, visual art, video projections, and language.
According to collaborating artist Walton-Smith:
“To me, the title of our production implies a combination of all these elements which doesn’t depend on a conceptual system… The complex and contradictory elements co-exist based on their physical presence… the presence of the live performance, the rhythm of the visual art, and the human presence of the performers… All this takes place in the subjective experience of each member of the audience… ”.
WATER, FIRE, SOUND (2023)
video projection
As the musicians set up on stage, we start with a collaborative video piece, an original electro-acoustic soundscape by house composer Hibiki Mukai and slow-motion imagery by Adrian Walton-Smith.
The piece shows the co-existence of apparent opposites: the element of fire contained
inside a dynamic skin of water. The music is an original sound collage, suggesting a ‘choral’ resonance containing the turbulent energy of the flames.
SHIRAYURI (2023) Hibiki Mukai
original composition & video projection
The concerts will start with ‘Shirayuri’ (white lily), written by award-winning composer, Hibiki Mukai. As one of the keystones of our ensemble, Mukai has been collaborating with us since day one. This new piece will be a significantly expanded elaboration of a composition he wrote for our ensemble in 2022. The lyrics used in the piece are based on a poem by Tomiko Yamakawa, a Japanese feminist poet from the beginning of the 20th century. Both Joel Merah’s arrangement and Hibiki’s work emerged through literature, carrying us towards further collaboration within multidisciplinary arts. Like Merah, Mukai will work closely with us throughout this project.
The ‘feeling’ of this video projection is transparent, and reflects the modest and spacious character of the composition. Starting from silence, a revolving movement in the centre of a simple glass creates a small vortex. The glass is a ‘ready-made’, the vortex a virtual form created by motion in the water.
OVERTURE on HEBREW THEMES op. 34 (1919) Sergei Prokofiev
performed music & video projection
This piece has a strong ‘klezmer’ feel, colourful and vibrant. We will show video projections inspired by a fairground carrousel, fast revolving objects in phase with the shutter of the camera create new virtual forms.
This phased video image shows small changes until the motor is switched off. As the motor slows down the virtual form changes back to the original ‘solid’ object. It’s starting point is revealed.
PICTURES at an EXHIBITION (1874) Modest Mussorgsky
performed music & video projection
In this new arrangement, Merah included a part for mezzo-soprano on Russian lyrics, taken from poems by various Russian poets such as Pushkin and Akhmatova. The chosen poems are thematically closely related to the paintings that inspired Mussorgsky. This is a completely new approach to the famous work of Mussorgsky; no other composer has ever set words to this work. Moreover, instead of the original version for solo piano or the famous arrangement by Maurice Ravel for complete orchestra, the instrumentation is unique: it’s an arrangement for the intimate setting of our chamber music ensemble consisting of violin, viola, cello, clarinet, flute, piano and mezzo-soprano.
In slow motion a projection of a large human figure lights a violent blue flame. The camera zooms into the flame. The flame starts to revolve fast, creating a blue halo.
The large figure disappears in an instant. A young boy dressed in the same clothes returns in his place, These two figures imply two important moods (the optimism and the darkness) of the piece.
The implied narrative of this projection is a kind of ‘sculptural element’, evolving very slowly. It reveals changes in physical form as much as a psychological meaning. The slow motion video – necessary to show the virile blue flame – gives the standing human figure an unusual slowness, making a ‘heroic’ sculpture out of his presence.
FIVE CORDS (2023)
Motion sculpture
Throughout the concert, visuals will be projected on two wide screens and on 5 single strings that will be located around the musicians. These strings will spin at different speeds, their movement acting as a “prism” that breaks up the light from the projected images into RGB components. This is visible on the strings themselves, creating, as it were, sculptures of light. The whole of projections, light, shadow, shapes, and movements will seem like one grand sculpture of which the musicians are a component. In this way, we offer an interdisciplinary performance that draws a clear line to the original compositions, while at the same time bringing something new and refreshing to the field.
Five single strings to the left and right of the performers are the only physical ‘sculptures’ present during the entire performance. These minimal strings can revolve at different speeds, creating a ‘visual music’. This effect is visible with the naked eye.
“ROMANCE for VOICE and PIANO (op. posth, 1893)” Alexander Scriabin
performed music & video projection
For an encore we will interpret the short piece “Romance for Voice and Piano (op. posth, 1893)” by Alexander Scriabin; composer and inventor of the light organ. This “tastiera per luce”, was a musical instrument which he invented for use in his work “Prometheus: Poem of Fire”.
In this way we make a final link with the fire theme in our performace and the moving strings, themselves a contemporary “light organ”.
