Study guide
Saariaho
Includes a detailed summary of the information needed for A2 exam. Background, Key points of interest, Structure, Melody, Tonality, Harmony, Texture, Sonority, Rhythm & Metre. (FYI Secured B Grade with these notes)
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Saariaho’s Petals for Violoncello& Live Electronics:
All Pieces
BACKGROUND
- Finnish living avant- garde composer
↪ Heard music in 1980 by the French ‘Spectral’ composers Tristan Murail and Gerard
Grisey which led her to explore this sound world.
- Interests included:
● computer-based sound spectrum analysis
● electronic music
● music combining live performance
● electronics
● use of computers in the actual composition of music
- Spectralism:
A compositional technique using computer analysis of the quality of timbre in music
↪ Chords can be created from analysing the structure of the sound,
combining harmonics and fundamental
- Petals: based on ideas from Nympheas (Jardin Secret III) (1987)
↪ a piece for string quartet and electronics
↪ with material taken from the spectral analysis of complex cello sounds
POINTS OF INTEREST
- Extended string techniques
- Spectral analysis
- Use of technology in live performances
- Contrasting sections, musical ideas and timbres
- Timbre being a structural principle
, Petals
STRUCTURE
Point Explanation Reference(s)
Piece does not follow a conventional IMOGEN HEAP-
musical structure HIDE AND SEEK
- Or indeed try to tell a story through a narrative structure Through
composed,
INSTEAD seems to be concerned with the tension between two types of pulseless,
material, and with the freedom given to
exploration of a myriad of timbres, the two types of material are performer.
described as:
1. ‘fragile coloristic passages’ (Type A) that are normally very slow. TRISTAN
2. ‘more energetic events with clear rhythmic and melodic character’ MURAIL-
(Type B). GONDWANA
At the start of
These types of material alternate throughout the piece, with each type of the piece a
material undergoing its own transformations. single chord
gradually
transforms into a
flurry of trills.
Score does not use bars and barlines but instead each stave is numbered:
Stave Section Tempo Comments
1 1-3 Lento - free Type A – harmonics, glissandi, trills, tremolandi and bow noise
2 4-7 ♩=60 Type B – Decuplet (10s) demisemiquavers, microtonal and chromatic runs, long
glissando. Rapid change of dynamics
3 8-9 Lento - free Type A – slow two-part (double stopped) texture over pedal D. Trills, harmonics,
dynamics: ppp, pp
4 10-13 ♩=54/66/40 Type B – more varied melodically with leaps and repeated notes and even motifs.
Rhythmically more varied than 4- 7.
5 13-16 Lento - free Type A – Double stopping and harmonics. Bottom
note moving between C sharp, G sharp and C nat.
6 17-27 ♩=60 Type B – Bottom C pedal throughout. Rising figures, with increasing use of glissandi and
tremolo. Strong dynamic contrasts.
7 28-30 Lento - free Type A – concluding section with similarities to section 3. Bow noise quite prominent here
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