Cerha: Impulse, für großes Orchester

Formally, this piece is multifaceted, rich and emotionally imbued with
strong contrasts. Constructs of fierce, passionate Nature alternate with
expressions of quietude, pensively elegiac, at times harshly and suddenly
juxtaposed, along with gestures (most of them emphasised by dynamics)
initiating a process leading continuously toward new, altered situations.

The work is subdivided into four sections, although only the third
section is separated from the previous one by a long general rest; the other
sections are interwoven. The piece is so polynomial that it defies detailed
description – and yet I would like to pick out two sections, if only to provide
an idea of the events.

The second part (seen in terms of the large formal overview) actually
consists of two different pieces, the first, faster one featuring for the most
part four instruments in motion against the background of a simple line in the
violas. The motion of each of the instruments is equal in its duration, but
that duration differs from one instrument to the next. Thus four different
tempi are played simultaneously, the notated metre obscured, although the
bassoon and the violas occasionally provide a glimpse of the basic metre at the
outset. Many may find the idiosyncratically cloven sound disconcerting; I think
it has much character.

The second, calmer “piece” begins with the oboe leading, accompanied as
it were by figures in the harp, vibraphone, marimba, with crotales and bells
joining later on. Then the two “pieces” are divided into small sections,
blended so that one section from the second “piece” always follows a section
from the first one. Two quaver chords in the winds signal the beginning of each
section from the calmer second “piece,” whereas a
pizzicato chord heralds the beginning of a portion from the faster part. The
result of melding structures which are completely static per se is very clear, despite all complexity – or so I hope.

The work’s fourth and last section is relatively simple; 16 sustained
wind chords (each separated from the next by rests) constitute the basis. The
first one is played triple pianissimo;
the others are progressively longer and louder, until the last one, which is very
long and fortissimo. The rests become
longer, too, but not to the same extent as the wind chords themselves – they
belong to the percussion, which begins in the opposite way, starting fortissimo and ending piano, the density reducing to a clearer
sound at the close.

The strings form a third layer, playing mostly piano and tremolo sul
ponticello, whereby at the beginning they are covered by the fortissimo percussion in the rests
between the wind chords; only toward the end does their motion return, gradually
broadening and in crescendo.

Although the overall complexity of the serial events is structurally
important on one level of the musical design, extensive explanations are at
most tangential to the actual listening experience.

This piece was commissioned by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, which
premiered it on 13 April 1996 in one of its subscription concerts, conducted by
André Previn.

Friedrich Cerha