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Petit prélude parallèle

Jonty Harrison

Programme notes
In memory of Claude Debussy

“If modern music may be said to have had a definite beginning, then it started with… the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy (1862-1918).” — Paul Griffiths, A Concise History of Modern Music

Debussy’s Prélude is one of ‘my’ pieces — an iconic part of my personal musical development and a work with which I grew up. I have played in it and conducted it — and listened to it probably hundreds of times. The centenary in 2018 of the death of Debussy prompted me to engage with it on yet another level: compositionally.

There are so many things I find appealing about Debussy’s music — the fluid, evocative and sensual musical surface, the fleeting and fragmentary nature of the material (the immediate repetition, the tiny alterations, then move on!), the ambiguity of the harmony, the subtlety of the orchestration, the restraint and understatement (things I have never mastered!) and the sense that, somehow, everything is just slightly out of reach — tantalisingly close, beautifully and precisely fashioned, yet ultimately elusive. If, by its very nature, all music is essentially ephemeral, then Debussy is the most musical of composers.

This Petit prélude parallèle marks something of a departure for me in many ways. Firstly, I introduce sonic events alluded to in the text of Mallarmé’s poem; this kind of direct, illustrative reference is new territory for me. More obviously, there is more focus on pitch than in most of my acousmatic music; it is everywhere here, and listeners who know the Debussy original will hear it running in parallel with my attempted evocation of the drowsy, heat-laden Sicilian afternoon in which the Faun remembers (or imagines) his erotic encounter.

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Petit prélude parallèle was realized in 2018 in the composer’s studio in Birmingham (England, UK) and premiered on April 26, 2018 in The Dome of the Bramall Music Building of the University of Birmingham as part of the BEAST FEaST 2018 festival.

Premiere

  • April 26, 2018, BEAST FEaST 2018: Concert 1, The Dome — Bramall Music Building — University of Birmingham, Birmingham (England, UK)
  • Composer(s): Jonty Harrison
  • Year of composition: 2018
  • Duration: 8:45
  • Instrumentation: ambisonic fixed medium