6 MELODIE DAL TIERKREIS DI KH STOCKHAUSEN for basset horn and string orchestra

‘The form and the instrumentation of Tierkreis are not defined a priori but they can be customized by every performer: this is the reason why Marelli and Pierini chose to work on only six of the melodies (Waterman, Taurus, Cancer, Scorpion, Sagittarius, Capricorn) and to aim at the timbre of the basset horn. […] The duration of the composition too is not fixed and it could change depending on the number of the melodic repetitions foreseen by the performer. Therefore we could consider it a ‘opera aperta’ and a work in progress, just as, in the purposes of its author, we perceive the need to compose a work permanently alive, able to renew itself in time and space’.

          (Andrea Malvano)

The melodic approach developed in these pieces represents, in my opinion, a pivotal point of departure of the more recent output by Karl Heinz Stockhausen Tag’ class=’karl-heinz-stockhausen-en-2’>Karl Heinz Stockhausen that, through the articulation of his creative curve that finds in Formel a starting moment, leads to the Formula conception of the last compositional cycles. The choice of the starsigns of this version, beyond their characters, is founded on a interval structure gathered from the reference pitches of each of the melodies: Taurus – B, Cancer – C, Scorpion – F, Sagittarius – F#, Waterman – Ab, Capricorn – G. Each melody is a universe with countless interpretation possibilities, to be developed on different levels; it is a ‘microcosm’, a structural constellation built with unreachable formal sense projecting a mysterious and hypnotic halo. My version is an observation of this formal organism that tries to catch both the ‘otherwordly’, beyond every easy mysticism, and syntactic aspects of this masterpiece. The version of 6 Melodie from Tierkreis was commissioned by the De Sono Tag’ class=’associazione-per-la-musica-de-sono-en-3’>Associazione per la Musica De Sono for its Concert Season.

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