“In periods of intense activity I am awakened every night around 2.30a.m. by an overwhelming flow of musical ideas which already began during the sleep. From there I turn in the bed, shaping these ideas and trembling to forget them. But their splendor vanishes usually with the daylight, leaving only a residue, which is not always interesting. From hundreds of such residues came out this piece.
Sometimes I get up and try to record them hastily. From these night-sketches, which look more like designs than musical notations, I could make an impressive exhibition. They are written with pencils of different colors representing each one a different instrument. But I had to write a musical piece with an inner logic and a narrative, which could be followed by the listener and this was particularly arduous that time: the material was too fluid and strongly resisted my efforts to reduce it to a linear succession of events. From these apparitions, I finally kept four very different “scenes,” which develop from the fluid towards the concrete.
As for Ron Merhavi, my former student who commissioned this piece for his diploma-recital, I think he had something simpler in mind: a work, which would show the possibilities of the lyric bass as it developed in the last 40 years, almost a new instrument. He sent me an up-to-date literature from Anderson to Henze and Rautavaara and I tried hard to assimilate these techniques. The outcome could be described as a bridge between the weightless daydreaming of the ensemble and the concreteness of the bass solo. The instruments– as heterogeneous as flute (four sizes), trumpet, accordion, bass clarinet, harp, viola and percussion (without drums)– weave a colored texture around the meditative obligato of the double bass, written in a complex and demanding, but not virtuoso fashion. Yet this relationship changes for each movement.
The title of the piece expresses a kind of mirroring between the instruments: an idea appearing in an instrument is usually followed by an echo or shadow of it in the others.
The double bass/piccolo duet in the third movement is a slightly changed version of a movement in my Light and Depth (1985).”
André Hajdu
אנדרה היידו (1932–2016): נים לא נים (צללים והדים) לקונטרבס ולאנסמבל קטן (2004) בכורה בעולם
רון מרחבי – קונטרבס, קתי אפל – חלילים; ליסה רשיאטורה – קלרנית בס; קווין ג'יבו – חצוצרה; אייזק שאנקלר – אקורדיאון; רייצ'ל בראנדווין – נבל; ג'ייסון איימוס – ויולה; אמילי הנדריקס ואריק קליין – כלי נקישה; כריס היל – מנצח
רסיטל הדיסרטציה השלישי של רון מרחבי: אולם בריטון, אוניברסיטת מישיגן, אן ארבור
27.10.2004