Alessio Elia
The Temptress
Duration: 12'
Solos:
piano
The Temptress
Sample pages
Video
Work introduction
The piece is named after a Jack Vettriano’s painting with the same title.
The music is designed around a haunting, delicate melody (an idea or fixed memory) that “sings” over a pattern of descending fourths. This melody is gradually disrupted by several distinct “projections” derived from it.
The piece employs a single, uninterrupted pedal throughout its entirety, allowing sounds and their resonances to accumulate progressively, creating an evolving sonic landscape.
Structured in multiple layers, the music builds as these layers overlap and appear with increasing frequency, resulting in a steadily densifying sound mass.
As the layers converge and their intervals become extremely close, the structure begins to dissolve. Eventually, the haunting melody emerges again, distant and fragile, like a faded memory.
All the layers are intrinsically connected, unified through spectral projections of the ostinato pattern of descending fourths.