Christoph Renhart
A Gnomic Inventory
Short instrumentation: 1 1 2 1 - 1 0 0 0, perc(2), cel, str
Duration: 14'
Instrumentation details:
flute
oboe
clarinet in Bb
bass clarinet in Bb
bassoon
horn in F
percussion (2 players)
celesta
violin I (5 players)
violin II (4 players)
viola (3 players)
violoncello (2 players)
double bass
A Gnomic Inventory
Sample pages
Work introduction
«A Gnomic Inventory» spins round six extramusical archetypes – moonlight, wind, water, stars and bells – in six musical pictures. In each movement one of these elements is foregrounded. Thus we can, for instance, clearly recognize all the bell like sounds in the celesta, thirteen strokes on the gong and virtuously played passeges on the tubular bells in the last piece. A musical echo of the subject ‹stars› might be seen in the quotation of Holst’s «Planets», which again appears in the sixth part.
«A Gnomic Inventory» for chamber orchestra is based on the first book of my book of oracles for the piano. Due to the orchestral illumination, a completely different and new perspective of the single musical tableaux is drawn. Ipso facto, the orchestration is my own, vastly free compositional interpretation of my piano pieces. Several passages mushroomed in the orchestral work, others were entirely rewritten. The work was composed in the summer of 2019 and kindly supported by the SKE cultural sponsorship.
World Premiere:
December 19, 2019 • Musikverein, Vienna (Brahms-Saal) • Wiener Concert-Verein • Claus Peter Flor (conductor)