Project Mercury

Alliage (Alloy) III for Violin Cello Classical Accordion and two Kokles (2010). Parts are available: WH31231A Programme note The instruments of this quintet are very different in appearance and in the way of playing as well as toneproduction: strings to be bowed strings to be plucked confronted with the airborne tone of the Accordion. The origins and the traditions of the instruments are also very diversified reaching from traditional folkmusic (the Kokle) and popular music (the Accordion) to art music of the classical tradition (the Violin and Cello). Acknoledging these references and connotations I refrainnevertheless from an obvious ‘casting’ of the instruments since I have always been fascinated by the less evident by transitions and gradual displacement by the intangible places between one and the other. I search for this ‘terrain vague’ of fruitfull incertainty andpermanent genesis. To arrive there I have in this piece created a musical expression which makes hidden relations and unexploredsonorous paths come forward between the different sound worlds of the instruments. Bringing together these musical substances I look for something deeper than just common sounds: a fresh musical place. And the lively and bright sound world that emerges form this instrumental and textural ’in-between’ I associate to alloys inparticular the silvery amalgamations of mercury. The work was composed to musicians from the Latvian ensemble Altera Veritas and of Ensemble Aleph (France) was a part of the project European Instrumental Laboratory. Niels Rosing-Schow