Project Info
Project Description
Stilleven
for mixed instrumental quintet: Alto flute / Viola / Percussion / Harp / Piano
- composition date: 2025
- duration: ca. 8:00 min.
- premiere: 7/May/2026 [scheduled]
- commission: Lisbon Contemporary Music Group [Grupo de Música Contemporânea de Lisboa/GMCL]
- note: Percussion (1 player) uses only Glockenspiel and Vibraphone
Stilleven is a Dutch term from which, for example, the English still life and the German Stillleben derive, and which in Portuguese we know as natureza morta. It refers to a particular genre of painting that portrays inanimate objects, whether natural (flowers, plants, fruit, dead animals, stones, etc.) or man-made (vases, furniture, kitchenware, musical instruments, jewellery, etc.). Although its origins can be traced back to Greco-Roman Classical Antiquity—and even earlier examples adorn tombs in Ancient Egypt—still life as an independent genre has its roots in the Flemish School of the 16th and 17th centuries. It has evolved over time, shaped by the creativity of artists across different eras, up to the present day.
In my work, the influence of stilleven/still life painting can be felt from the very outset, in the long, static opening section, which unfolds without any apparent evolution or development. Here, the focus is on sonic material and its acoustic resonance, exploring the colour of sound and instrumental timbre. All the elements of the quintet contribute to this texture, despite the consistently soft dynamic level. Following this initial minimalism, a more agitated central section emerges, in which I imagine the inanimate objects paradoxically coming to life, in an almost surrealist drift. Elements from the opening section, however, intermittently permeate and tint this bold frenzy, until the static and monotonous material once again asserts itself—now corrupted by motivic material from the central section—resulting in a fusion of the work’s various components. A long, melancholic cantilena in the flute and viola now unfolds languidly beneath a crystalline and impassive constellation of high-register sounds in the other three instruments, until the music abruptly shifts into the extreme upper register, concluding with a fade-out, to which the flute responds with a brief final comment in its middle–low register.
The instrumental configuration I chose for this quintet is deliberately unusual: alto flute, viola, percussion (glockenspiel and vibraphone only), harp, and piano. With this distinctive blend of timbres, I aim to explore contrasting and distinctive sonorities that sustain my musical narrative. The art of sound cannot directly emulate the art of images, but it can strive to evoke similar sensations.
Stilleven results from a commission by the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group (Grupo de Música Contemporânea de Lisboa, GMCL), to whom the work is dedicated.
buy sheet music:
[available soon]
multimedia:
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