Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works)
Composer: Oliver Waespi
Difficulty level: Championship
Duration 17.20
Commissioned by the Swiss Brass Band Association for the 34th European Brass Band Contest 2011 Montraux, Switzerland Test piece championship section with the kind financial support of the Swiss Wind Band Federation.
Programme note :
Whist composing AUDIVI MEDIA NOCTE, I was driven by several conflicting musical ideas. On the one hand, I was partly inspired by the sixteenth-century motet by Thomas Tallis from which the piece draws its title. Tallis’s motet is sung primarily on All Saints’ Day, and its title means “I heard, at midnight .“ Having remembered and cherished this motet for many years, I felt it was time to let it finally have an influence in my own music, On the other hand, I experienced the need for a considerable kinetic energy in order to outweigh the calm, contemplative flow of the motet and to place Tallis’s music into a more contemporary context. Hence, various rhythmical motifs began to emerge, some of which were in turn secretly related to the rhythmical structure of the motet. Moreover, I developed a series of chords whose harmony constitutes a counterpoint to the modal background of the motet.
Gradually, the piece developed a character of its own, loosely connected to the mystical imagery of the night hiding our secret passions and regrets. it evolved into an instrumental drama rather than a set of variations, including elements of a concerto grosso, as groups of soloists are featured In quite unusual ways. The sonic character of a brass band, with Its preponderance of heavy, low registers, its lyrical potential end its ability to shape compact rhythmical gestures, proved favourable to my musical intentions, AUDIVI MEDIA NOCTE thus became a musical tale that oscillates somehow between past end present, between contemplation and frivolity, between prayer and rave.
Performance notes :
Throughout the piece, notes in brackets cat be left out if necessary for technical reasons, e.g. for breathing or to avoid difficult gaps.
Don’t overplay the fermatas, just use them in order to create a natural timing, thereby contributing to the calm atmosphere of most slow sections where fermatas occur.
Crescendi and decrescendi without any indication of starting or ending dynamics don’t have to be exaggerated, but are suggestions for the expressive shaping of a line ( just like slurs indicating the expression rather than the phrasing).
Percussion players in the Solo Groups A and B — bongo and snare drum players that is — are invited to enrich their respective parts according the stylistic background of the passages (with a funk “feel’ or ‘with a “Jazz feel”), Such improvisational enhancement should, however, stay within tine prescribed structure, contribute to rather than inhibit the respective grooves, and never cover other instruments beyond the Indicated dynamics, Similar considerations apply to the short solo cadenza of the snare drum player in Solo Group B at letter (K, which should In any case slay In tempo, and exclude any rubato playing.
For some vibraphone passages a pedal symbol is applied to large groups of notes, This is a way Of creating certain harmonic fields. However depending on the player’s preferences, the particular Instrument, and the acoustics, you may have to include smaller or larger groups of notes within the pedal, in order to avoid too blurred a sonic Image.
Those parts or the piece which are marked ‘with a jazz feel’ should not be performed in a swing style, as they are remotely inspired by fusion or jazz rock artists such as the Headhunters or the Brecker Brothers, whose playing of semiquavers seems closer to a duple rather than a triple feel. in any case, the quavers/eighth notes and semiquavers / sixteenth notes should always be played straight.
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