Marek PASIECZNY | TATE SONATA | Giacomo SUSANI (guitar)
Channel: Marek Pasieczny
Date: 2019-01-22

SCORE / DOWNLOAD: https://li.sten.to/TateSonata

Giacomo Susani - guitar

Carlo DOMENICONI: ‘TATE SONATA shows an incredible knowledge of the guitar. Finally we found the real soul of the guitar!’ (Jan. 2019, Germany)

Dusan BOGDANOVIC: “Marek’s “Tate” sonata for guitar is a great modernist composition that stretches performer’s capacities to the maximum. It is an intense, uncompromising piece, crafted with technical mastery and emotional extremes’ (March, Geneva, Switzerland)

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TATE SONATA by Marek PASIECZNY

I. Ad Un Tratto 0:00
II. Furioso 1:59
III. Ostinato 3:25
IV. Variations and Finale 6:36

This piece is inspired by the Tate Modern in London: one of the most prestigious, respected, and popular modern art museums in the world. 

Written in sonata form, each of the four movements is inspired by a different piece of artwork with their own distinct techniques.

The Tate Sonata is commissioned by, and dedicated to Giacomo Susani.

FORM

1st movement: I. Ad Un Tratto
Inspired by The Flowers of Evil (series) (1972) by Jirí Kolár 

Kolár (pronounced to sound like ‘collage’) developed various ways of combining imagery. In this artwork, he used a technique where he interlaced vertical strips of two different images, which he called ‘prollage’. 

This technique is represented by placing two notes e/f next to each other throughout the piece, signalling the ‘strips’ of two different images arranged next to each other. 
Due to this interlacing technique, both images are disturbed, yet recognizable. In this sense, the notes e/f are instructed to be plucked on the other side of the LH, producing a quarter tone effect which tampers with the clarity of the notes. 

To further ‘disturb’ the flow of the piece, I decided to cut through the slow narration of the 1st movement with a series of fast notes (arpeggios and legato scales) to make the reception less predictable and more fuzzy. Some of these fast groups of notes will be appearing in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th movements. 

2nd  movement II. Furioso
Strip (921-6) (2011) by Gerhard Richter

This very large digital painting is composed of many thin horizontal strips in a variety of different colours. For me it emanates a very disturbing and energetic feel, which translates into the fast tempo and bold dynamics of this movement. 

To demonstrate the penetrating power of these colourful strips, I have used an unusual technique: a fast attack arpeggio/rasgueado using both 1st and 2nd fingers in the RH, suggestive of ‘cutting’ air. Combined with clusters of seconds that interact sonoristically with each other, the compact yet visually interactive strips come to life musically. 

The inconsistency of the strips (some thinner, some thicker) is represented by the changing of time signatures and the use of irregular time signatures. 

3rd movement: III. Ostinato
Yellow versus Purple (2003) by Olafur Eliasson

“Colour doesn’t exist in itself, only when looked at. The fact that ‘colour’, uniquely, only materializes when light bounces off it into our retina indicates that analyzing colours is in fact about analyzing ourselves.” (Olafur Eliasson)

This installation invokes in me a sense of calm and lightness, both in the sense of airiness as well as brightness, which I captured in the more tonal harmonies of this movement. The slow, endless motion of the suspended disc is represented by the slow tempo and ostinato B note. Though the disc, and thus the B note, is unchanging in itself, its shadows are ever changing, which is denoted by the changes in harmony built on the ostinato B. 

4th movement: IV. Variations and Finale
Summertime: Number 9A (1948) by Jackson Pollock

Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950 (...) The rhythms in Summertime (1948) reflect his belief that ‘The modern artist ... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces’.

The final movement begins with a single melody line, mimicking the single-lined drippings of black paint on the canvas. There is hidden polyphony within the single melody line, alluding to the hidden figures behind the abstract web of paint. Taken from the idea that Summertime (1948) is made up of a series of variations, this movement is written in the form of Theme and Variations. 

The theme is based on eight notes built on the chromatic scale B flat - B - C - C sharp - D - E flat. The finale section recalls materials from all previous movements, mirroring how the first movement introduced snippets of forthcoming movements.

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