Commissioned by: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon
Premiere: Drumming Grupo de Percussão, Edicson Ruiz (double bass) and Miquel Bernat (direction). Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 6.2.2010.
This piece is part of a group of works that deal mainly with the aspect of noise, such as Fragments of Noise and Blood (2009). Both noise as sound and noise as information are considered in this piece.
The exploration of these sounds, which are not normally part of instrumental contemporary music, is based on a common property of sounds: rhythm. Sound that is rhythm, because of its inherent qualities. If we start from this principle, which creates a variety of instruments (some of which were constructed specifically for this piece), the common character is the iteraction at the microscopic level. Among these instruments, I include the granite stone, sandpaper, and electronic instruments such as the piezzo.
The double bass moves in the same context; in a universe of rhythm in which the pulse is destroyed to create hereby another regularity.
In some respects, the form of the piece follows a conventional solo concerto, where the double bass takes on a special role. On the other hand, the percussion instruments are treated in the same way as a double bass. Thus, one creates a complex hybrid instrument.