Chamber Ensemble
SKU:
HL.14027980
Composed
by Poul Ruders. Music
Sales America. Classical.
Score. 72 pages. Edition
Wilhelm Hansen #WH29856.
Published by Edition
Wilhelm Hansen
(HL.14027980).
ISBN
9788759856819. 12x16.5
inches.
Danish.
Corpus Cum
Figuris is a uniform
composition in three
major parts. The first
part is a slow marche
funébre, a
kind of prologue with
dark and sombre sounds
and a massive wall of
chords which leads us to
the other part of the
works where the static
and solemn atmosphere is
suddenly stopped and
replaced by a
rhythmic/melodic ritual
which accelerates the
music. In the third part
the block structure is
softened gradually,
different figurations and
stylistic elements arise
to live their own lives:
distant waltzes and
pictures from the Middle
Ages appear in this
gigantic sonorous body.
After a wild percussion
orgy a short flash-back
and a scream from the
edge end Corpus cum
Figuris. The piece has no
literal content at all,
even though the title
leads the thought to
Adrian Leverkühn's
Apocalipsis cum Figuris
from Thomas Mann's Doctor
Faustus. More likely, my
piece will arouse
associations as with all
my music. It has to be
heard in it's own
conditions, in this case
as a big body of music or
perhaps as a great screen
where the details, of
course, are part of the
whole body but at the
same time are foreign and
odd. It is as if one
climbs a mountain and
from the top of that
mountain discovers a
world which is completely
different from expected.
Corpus cum Figuris for 20
musicians was composed in
1984, commissioned by
Ensemble
InterContemporain and the
Danish Radio. Ensemble
InterContemporain world
premiered the work in
April 1985 conducted by
Peter Eötvös.
The piece was also played
at the ISCM-festival in
Amsterdam by Netherland
Radio Chamber Orchestra
conducted by Ernest
Bour.
Cummings
