DUO I for basset horn and percussions

DUO I for basset horn and percussions was composed for MITO Settembre Musica 2009 and premièred there by Michele Marelli and Riccardo Balbinutti; the composition receives its origin from SOLO I for basset horn carrying on its path and broadening it. The idea of the ‘archipelago’ constellation that branches out from a central core and expands in different directions is the basis of the conception of this composition; DUO I is a ‘microcosm’, ‘an irregular grouping of similar things’ (according to one of the possible definition of the word ‘archipelago’), a ‘galactic’ system linked together by a deep but not immediately perceptible musical bond, a maze where it doesn’t exist a single path of interpretation given once for all.

The fragments that form it are seven, the four from SOLO I to which the percussions were added together with other three new ones, to build the new jointed configuration that follows:

I – II – (new) – III – (new) – IV – (new)

The musical connection of this microstructures is given by the materials used to assemble them, primarily the semitone and fourth intervals which, beyond their immanent value, are conceived as two ways to arrange the chromatic universe and that influence all the other musical parameters.