Les fees sont d'exquises danseuses

commissioned by Jeunesse Moderne 2005 with kindly help of ÑOskar and Vera Ritter Foundationì

"Les fÈes sont d'exquises danseuses" was written for Jeunesses Modernes and financed by the ÑOskar and Vera Ritter Foundationì. The piece is taking as a starting point the last mouvement of my three pieces for string trio which is entitled ÑÖì because of its airy and fugitive character.
With the addition of piano and flute some of the ideas of the string trio piece could be explored further. The concept of complex microtonality made possible by using scordatura for the string instruments for example was already used in the string trio: Open strings and natural harmonics provide a rich reservoir of pitches which are easy to find for the musicians. Now, the prepared piano adds further microtonal colors based on certain overtones of the piano strings. The flute allowing a multitude of playing techniques gives more contour to the musical gestures. And multiphonics of the flute and the resonances of the piano added some depth and reverberance effect to the different microtonal chords made of diverse trilling techniques.
Starting of as mere instrumentation of the string trio piece, "Les fÈes sont d'exquises danseuses" very began to become a piece of its own. Sometimes it might sound have the speed and sotto voce character of some sort of Ñsummer nightís dreamì in which spooks a rhythmical message, a bit like a relict of a bossa nova by Jo„o Gilberto. The title refers to a prelude by Debussy which shares with my piece some virtuosic aspects in regard of arpeggios. Also the main idea of the scordatura which features major seconds that are Ñto bigì (7:8 seconds in the overtone series) might be understood as a hommage to Debussyís whole tone sound world.