Two Movements

Marcus Hu

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Ensemble

2023

17 min.

Bassoon

Cello

Clarinet

Double Bass

Flute

Horn

Oboe

Piano

Pitched Percussion

Trombone

Trumpet

Unpitched Percussion

Viola

Violin

More Details

Program Notes: I. Parisian Dialect and Proust’s Madeleines: “No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.” [Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time - “Episode of the Madeleine”] II. Sommarens första dag: rondeaux français: If despondency and purposelessness permeates Proust’s novel with unspoken omnipresence, then Sommarens första dag: rondeaux français caricatures the hideous triumph of their evil Belle-Époque twin: absolute hedonism. This movement is characterised by fleeting progressions of stimulating dance rhythms: perhaps heart-throbbingly intense at times, yet it is implied that these frivolous spasms are destined for an inevitably infernal destruction - torn sadistically asunder by the warped souls of their victims before being crushed by their own paralysing guilt of meaninglessness.
Recording Notes: Soikoon! Helsinki, December 2023
Record Label: N/A
Ensemble Name: Avanti! Chamber Orchestra