Two ensemble pieces by the European avant-garde legend Vinko Globokar were premiered in November. Passaggio verso il rischio, an associative journey through Globokar’s life commissioned by Wien Modern and Studio Dan, was presented on 3 November in the Mozart Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus. Bouquet de paramètres sauvages, his musical “wild bouquet”, was premiered in Ljubljana at the 20th Slowind Festival, performed by Klangforum Wien and the Slowind Quintet, directed by Steven Loy. The work is being given its first performance in Austria on 5 December 2018 at Vienna’s Radiokulturhaus.

Passagio verso il rischio (2017)

fl.asax.tpt.trb.vl.vc.db
Duration: 30'

Studio Dan, Daniel Riegler (trombone and cond.); Wien Modern – Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna

About the work

PASSAGGIO (Passage) The percussionist Jean-Pierre Drouet led us from Paris to Bled (Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia) to play for a whole summer in a dance locale. Towards evening, Drouet rang up his friend living in Milan, the composer Luciano Berio, who invited us to stay with him. He was in the process of composing his first opera, Passaggio. The writing was so complicated that I became his composition student. After a few lessons, he said: “You know everything. If you have ideas, compose. When you begin to copy someone, stop composing; the damage will be less.”

VERSO (In the direction of...) Trombone study at the Paris Conservatoire, studio musician, Cologne Hochschule professor, composition student of René Leibowitz, interest in free improvisation.

RISCHIO (Risk) For 13 years, with Jean-Pierre Drouet (percussion), Michel Portal (clarinet, saxophone, bandoneon), Roque Alsina (piano, organ), we gave some 150 concerts of New Phonic Art all around the world – without speaking a word. Not a word beforehand, and nothing afterward!

WHY the collaboration with Studio Dan and Daniel Riegler? Between 1970 and 1983, I worked at a lab on an experimental work for ten musicians (total playing time: 5 hours). Daniel chose some pieces and made a spectacle for children out of them [Wien Modern, 2016]. There was no humour in what I had written. Daniel brought to it what was missing. Thank you, Dan and Daniel! (In 
Slovenian “dober dan” means “beautiful day”.)

Score of Passagio verso il rischio 

Bouquet de paramètres sauvages (2018)

pour 14 instruments
fl.ob.cl.bsn.vl.vla.vc.db.pf.perc.tpt.2hn.trb
WP: Ljubljana, 15.11.2018
Duration: 25'

Performances

15.11.2018 (WP)
Slowind Quintet, Klangforum Wien, Steven Loy (cond.); Slowind Festival – Slovenska filharmonija, Ljubljana

5.12.2018 (NP)
Slowind Quintet, Klangforum Wien, Steven Loy (cond.); Radiokulturhaus, Vienna

About the work

A bouquet is intrinsically cheerful, colourful and full of surprises for its recipient. A requiem, on the other hand, betokens death, the end. The end of an invigorating time in which five young people (Slowind) were determined to acquaint the Slovenian public with risky musical trends that had been heard extremely rarely in the country. With the world sliding into musical banality and distraction, it was no accident that the Slovenian minister of culture sought to regenerate the country by cutting subsidies for movements that stimulated thought (among them Slowind, to whom this work is dedicated). I hope that every listener will find his or her wildflowers in this bouquet.
—Vinko Globokar

Score of Bouquet de paramètres sauvages