Nikolai Badinski
The Intoxicated Bat
Short instrumentation: 2 2 2 2 - 4 2 3 1 - timp, perc(2), str
Duration: 14'
Dedication: Der Welt-Musikmuse Wien gewidmet, einem Phänomen, das für mich schon in meiner frühesten Kindheit ein fernes/nahes Wundermärchen war
Instrumentation details:
1st flute
2nd flute (+picc)
1st oboe
2nd oboe
1st clarinet in A (+bass cl(Bb))
2nd clarinet in A
1st bassoon
2nd bassoon (+cbsn)
1st horn in F
2nd horn in F
3rd horn in F
4th horn in F
1st trumpet in Bb
2nd trumpet in Bb
1st trombone
2nd trombone
3rd trombone
tuba
timpani
1st percussion
2nd percussion
violin I
violin II
viola
violoncello
double bass
Badinski - Die „trunkene“ Fledermaus for orchestra
Translation, reprints and more
Nikolai Badinski
Badinski: Die „trunkene“ FledermausOrchestration: für Orchester
Type: Studienpartitur (Sonderanfertigung)
Sample pages
Audio preview
Work introduction
The idea of an orchestral composition associated with Johann Strauß, the symbol of pleasurable, cheerful music on the highest level, came to me many years ago. It was a recurring dream: Johann Strauß’ “musical Gestalt” kept shimmering in my own musical visions.
At that time I was also intensively involved with twelve-tone music and generally avant-garde ideas, which was forbidden then in East Germany and the socialist countries; so it could only happen in secret. That annoyed me greatly.
Later on, sounds came along which I heard as the initial notes of Bach’s Art of Fugue. Bach “calmed” my conscience, so to speak – and yet I blocked myself internally from putting my dream-vision on paper as a composition. But the vision pursued me for years until I drafted the first sketches for orchestra in London in 1991 and finished the full score in Berlin.
Two worlds oscillate in this piece in a surrealistic way – two epochs which commingle: the world of Johann Strauß’s time and ours, with Bach as a bridge.
Nikolai Badinski
1992, Berlin/London
Translated by Grant Chorley, 2013