About the compositions

                   In April, 2004, Esprit performs Sublimation, an Esprit commission, at its Weekend, New Wave Composers Festival in Toronto.

                   Esprit Orchestra performed André Ristic's Information Sunday, February 23, 2003, at the Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, as part of its New Waves concert.

                   Sublimation

                   Since 1999, I have composed 2 orchestral pieces (for normal orchestra with no soloists, bizarre stuff or baroque strings): Information and Variation. Both pieces are inspired by the various definitions one gives their respective titles.

                   I think of the orchestra as an ambivalent and quite strange instrument definitely suitable for the exploration of 'hidden meanings' - what so intrigues me.

                   When asked about the possibility of a new orchestral work for the Esprit Orchestra I was especially excited because in Montreal the main orchestra is committed to not playing contemporary music and the second largest orchestra already has made me the favour of playing Variation - and, for a moment I'd thought my orchestral days could be over for a while. . . leaving unrealized my third project: Sublimation.

                   The word has a chemical definition that is most inspiring; it is the passage between one state and the other. In French, the word could also mean "transformation of wrong emotions into ones that are socially acceptable", or, simply, "the purification of one's soul or physical being into its best essence."

                   Hence, my piece will have the structure of a metamorphosis, indeed describing the metamorphosis concept in itself! Musical elements will be treated as in previous works (with a desire to purify them), but, this time, my intent is to present them only in their impure and purified (idealized) materializations.

                   The intent is to communicate the perfection of musical objects, only by presenting them with the maximum respect; i.e. with no compositional gadgets that would pollute them (developments, transformations, etc.).

                   It will be a piece about the sublimation of sublimation.

                    Information (2001-02)

                   In five movements

                   

"I remember sitting at my desk, taking notes as I watched the American news channels going 'round and 'round about this one unique event… I heard sentences like 'Is there a connection between this lack of Catholic priests in Arkansas and the terror attacks? Let's find out after this.' And, of course, 'this' would be something like a nationwide rebate on mail-order flags..."

                   During the months of Autumn, 2001, I began composing this orchestral piece that I believed (at first) would be rather short and in the form of a study of ideas I wanted to develop concerning orchestral writing. It was almost a totally academic project, which I expected to last no more than ten minutes.

                   So, I got started on the theme of 'information,' which has always been dear to me. Information is a way of communicating that supercedes normal language... What we perceive of content that language is bearing depends enormously upon how it is organized (this is precisely the definition of information). For instance, the order in which you say: "In Groznyi, the Russians killed 200 civilians," and then some five minutes later, "The Tchetchen rebels killed some cilvilians in an attack yesterday," has an impact on how you consider reparting guilt between these participants of an armed conflict.

                   I decided to organize a musical structure that would subliminally make these choices for the listener (what's important, what's not, what is supposed to be important, what is hidden beneath other seemingly important stuff, etc.), or even force these choices upon him/her. A lot of this is very apparent in the structure of the composition (for instance parts of the piece are 'zooms' to the microscopic substance of musical information, while others parts 'manipulate,' 'trick' the data, or distort it).

                   I was then well on my way to actually starting to write some music when the unexpected terrorist attacks supplied me with an apparent infinite source of inspiration. I remember sitting at my desk, taking notes as I watched the American news channels going 'round and 'round about this one unique event, as if every other bit of reality would inevitably end up having a strong connection with it. I heard sentences like "Is there a connection between this lack of Catholic priests in Arkansas and the terror attacks? Let's find out after this." And, of course, 'this' would be something like a nationwide rebate on mail-order flags. For me, there was and still is, a troubling cynism in the information that was given to us during the Fall of 2001.

                   Information was composed during these months of trouble in International politics, and as is audible, the music was influenced by this mayhem. I think one can even here my own 'terror attack' at the end of the first movement! The fact that all information was filtered by one event forced me to consider making my composition significantly longer; and, so, in the end it is a quite long piece of music.

                   The first movement is best described as a 'statement' of a very dense nature, comparable perhaps to the hours following a dramatic event. (We are talking about 'TV' hours, of course, which are fundamentally different from 'normal' hours). Everything in it is an anacrouse for something terrible.

                   The second and fourth movements are 'zooms' into details of this information. At some point in a frantic sequence of violent images, it is like wanting to focus on one single detail (for instance, a piece of paper flying in the air - what's written on it? Is it a love letter? A bill?) within this tornado of concrete and gypse powder that would cloud the air for weeks. The fourth movement, in particular, gives the impression of a micro-second being scanned and re-scanned at a very fast frequency - it is, indeed, trying to create an 'eternal instant' of information.

                   The middle (third) movement is a 'commercial break,' containing in itself some new information, which turns out to have a certain link with the rest of the piece.

                   The last movement mirrors the first. It uses mainly the same process of analysis-elimination in order to manipulate different pieces of information, focusing on the most important (rather, the one it wants to be considered important). However, the process takes part in a slow movement, which makes it something of a 'new glance' at the same information - a different perspective, or the viewpoint of another persona.

                   This piece was not composed out of a commission project, but I would like to dedicate it to Alex Pauk and every one of the musicians of Esprit as a token of gratitude for believing in the value of this music. My special thanks go to Mr. Pauk for his astounding support, for premiering this piece, and in general for being an excellent human being.

                   Programme note by André Ristic