Baltakas: Redditio 2, für Bläserquintett

My view of musical composition and conducting is one of reciprocity. I say that both as a composer and as a conductor “you can influence it, suggest ideas, give it direction, make decisions. You give impulses, but you also receive impulses from the music, which you then process again and which then reflect back.” A dictionary provides the following definition of the Latin word redditio: “a performance of a musical composition or a dramatic role; the act of interpreting something as expressed in an artistic performance.” The starting-point or formal source for this new work was my Ri for soprano and electronics. That composition has a very open musical structure and can be reinterpreted in very different ways. My works which followed (RiRo for soprano and trumpet, Redditio for ensemble) are not just arrangements or adaptations for different instruments; they are new (re)compositions, using the same starting-point, yet moving towards something new, specific to the new instrumentation. The approach is similar to the use of the classical sonata form in the 18th-19th century. Hence the title: Redditio 2, a re-telling.

The score uses a mixed notation, combining precise, graphical and aleatoric notation systems. The main motivation for doing so is to allow the musicians to react to the given moment and create their own authentic interpretation.

Vykintas Baltakas