SAUNDERS
Bite for Bass Flute Solo
(2015/16)
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version For perusal only
REBECCA SAUNDERS
Bite
(2015 / 16)
for Bass Flute Solo
ISSUU Version For perusal only
For Helen Bledsoe with my many thanks for the sound sessions together.
Commissioned by musikFabrik for first performance at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival November 18th 2016.
Final Version 5.2015 - 6. 2018
Bite (2015/16) for bass flute solo
The final short prose of Samuel Beckett´s thirteen Texts For Nothing is simply entitled XIII. It is a text of great power and lucidity where intensely fragile fleeting moments describing a mouthless murmuring ceaseless voice are juxtaposed with violent outbursts of anger. This Beckett prose closely accompanied the composing process of this bass flute solo, and several key words, phonetics or sounds are heard again and again, like an echo or a resonance.
"...a voice murmuring a trace. A trace it wants to leave a trace, yes, like air leaves among the leaves...
...And whose shame, at every mute micromillisyllable, and unshakeable infinity of remorse delving ever deeper in its bite, at having to hear, having to say, fainter than the faintest murmur, so many lies, so many times the same lie lyingly denied, whose screaming silence of no´s knife in yes´s wound, it wonders... ...one day to be here, where there are no days, which is no place, born of the impossible voice the unmakeable, and a gleam of light, still all would be silent and empty and dark, and dark, as now, as soon now, when all will be ended, all said, it says, it murmurs."
Samuel Beckett, XIII, Texts For Nothing, Calder Publications
RS
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
Rebecca Saunders
Rebecca Saunders studied with Wolfgang Rihm at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe, Germany, and for a PhD in Composition with Nigel Osborne at Edinburgh University. She lives in Berlin. Saunders’ composition prizes include the 1996 Ernst von Siemens Komponisten-Förderpreis and the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Award for Chamber Music. Her works have been performed at festivals including the Huddersfield Festival, the Berlin Biennale and the Darmstadt Ferienkurse. In 2009 she became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Saunders’ works include chroma, for chamber groups distributed throughout the performance space, albescere, written for Ensemble Modern and the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, and a double concerto for trumpet, percussion and orchestra.
Rebecca Saunders studierte Komposition bei Wolfgang Rihm an der Musikhochschule Karlsruhe und promovierte an der Universität Edinburgh bei Nigel Osborne. Sie lebt in Berlin. Saunders erhielt unter anderem den Komponisten-Förderpreis 1996 der Ernst-vonSiemens-Musikstiftung sowie den Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Award 2008 in der Kategorie Kammermusik. Ihre Werke erklangen bei zahlreichen Festivals wie dem Huddersfield Festival, der Berlin-Biennale und den Darmstädter Ferienkursen. 2009 wurde sie zum Mitglied der Berliner Akademie der Künste ernannt. Zu ihren Werken zählen chroma für im Raum verteilte Kammergruppen, albescere (entstanden für das Ensemble Modern und die Neuen Vocalsolisten Stuttgart) sowie ein Doppelkonzert für Trompete, Schlagzeug und Orchester.
Photo © Astrid Ackermann