»Enikő Ginzery gewidmet«

I          Vienna, 16.7.2020         4'45

II         Vienna, 15.7.2024         9'30

III        Vienna, 4.8.2024           6'45

IV        Vienna, 15.8.2024         6'08

Total duration: ca. 30 minutes

About the work: While working on my second oratorio, Schwarzer Schnee [Black Snow], Op. 22q, I also composed four pieces for solo cimbalom, giving them a title reminiscent of Debussy. These pieces were written for and are dedicated to the Slovak cimbalom virtuoso Enikő Ginzery, whom I first met through Péter Eötvös.

The four pieces could not be more different in form and character, although they are all based on the development of three closely related five-part chords.

The first piece begins like an introduction, featuring both playful as well as cantabile elements. Particularly striking is the frequent sequencing of chordal and motivic elements, which also influences the remaining pieces.

The second piece begins like a song with accompaniment. The melody is shaped by periods of varying lengths, with a harmonic tension between tritone, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth. This harmonically sophisticated song-like section is interrupted by more lively musical material. The first of the following sections varies the intervallic content of the fifth and the fourth, allowing musically bold fantasies to unfold: contrasts between dotted and over-dotted gestures with unconventional scalar patterns, unusual broken chords, and wide leaps dominate the musical landscape. A syncopated idea consisting of repeated notes leads into a new song-like section, which could perhaps be referred to as Song II: it is distinguished from Song I through its different meter and accompanying melody. A dance-like section in the character of a tango then leads towards the coda, a sequence of arpeggiated chords in an unrelated tonality.

The third piece that follows this extended movement can be described as a kind of perpetual cadenza. While it is conceived on a much smaller scale compared to the two preceding movements (especially considering the almost symphonic character of the second movement), it is also much freer in terms of invention and structure. Short phrases repeatedly begin anew, only to immediately dissolve and vanish. Varied sequences act as driving forces, and initial motivic cells are varied and continuously developed in ever-changing ways. Out of this stream of events new motivic cells emerge – such as dotted rhythms or simultaneously sounding fourths, which are integrated into three floating or even dance-like episodes. These episodes appear suddenly, only to stop just as abruptly. One means of bringing these phrases to an end is through a melody of repeated notes that gradually slow down.

The concept of dance dominates the final piece. The foundation of this movement is shaped by the binary structure of the main theme and its characteristic upbeat as well as a reminiscence of working with pure intervals and tritones as in the other movements. The basic meter is 2/4, like a Romanian Hora and other dances from Southeast European musical cultures. The piece develops similarly to a rondo, in which this dance is interrupted by unorthodox scalar formations and chordal arpeggios. The basic 2/4 pattern is only occasionally abandoned; in a few passages, 4+4 sixteenth notes are expanded to 5+5 sixteenth notes that are derived from 5-part chords – while a triplet passage is supported by a ¾-meter framework.

Harmonic intensity and diversity characterize this major solo work for an instrument that, due to its distinctive sonic character and unusual playing technique, deserves to be cultivated in the field of classical music in a manner similar to the saxophone and the accordion.