The next edition of MKO Songbook on September 29 will feature Symphony No. 1 “Music on open strings” by Gloria Coates and dead wasps in the jam-jar (ii) for string orchestra by Clara Iannotta.
The concert series MKO Songbook is a collaboration between the Münchener Kammerorchester (MKO) and the venue, Schwere Reiter that focusses on presenting works by Munich-born or Munich-based composers, alongside exemplary works of the modern string orchestra repertoire and compositions that were written specifically for the MKO.
American composer Gloria Coates lived most of her life in Munich, where Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1972. Clara Iannotta’s work however, was written and first performed by MKO and is therefore featured in this series.
The musical ideas of Symphony No. 1 “Music on open strings” involved working with changing colours, textures, structures and psychological time units developed organically within the cell structure of the music itself. If one wants to interpret this as political music, one can use the broader interpretation of systems striving for perfection... and arriving at the ideal; finding common denominators of (tonal) systems (pentatonic C, D, E, G, A) from which a structure of consonant movement within can build to peace.
dead wasps in the jam-jar was commissioned to nestle amongst the movements of J. S. Bach’s Partita No. 1 for solo violin and in this case Bach’s Corrente, draping a range of glissandi and other noise effects over a skeleton of the original. In addition, the title is a striking image taken from the poem ‘Mother’s kitchen’ by Dorothy Molloy.
While the influences of both Bach and Molloy are substantial, they rest only lightly on Iannotta’s piece. In dead wasps in the jam-jar (ii), one hears a great swelling of the violin solo that expands its gestures and dwells longer in their consequences, augmenting the strings themselves with sine tones and a range of additional objects, including ‘gelinotte’ birdcalls, bowed polystyrene blocks, and plastic containers rubbed on plexiglass. The effect is like lifting a stone and discovering a whole world teeming beneath.
For further information please see the website of MKO.
