RINGTONE VARIATIONS
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"Mr. Currier won the Grawemeyer Award for “Static” (2003), and he has already composed “Aftersong” (1994) and “Time Machines (2007) for Ms. Mutter. His smartly constructed variations take a handful of generic pre-smartphone ringtones and turn them into an almost-passacaglia for violin and double bass that plays with harmonic partials and intersperses the ringtones with quick, semiquaver runs..." -New York Times "The evening opened in a grittier fashion with Sebastian Currier’s Ringtone Variations. Among our most gifted composers, Currier wrote his Time Machines - one of the finest violin concertos of recent decades - for Mutter. Also written for Mutter, the title of Ringtone Variations and opening cell-ring theme seem like a wry comment on clueless audience mnmbers who leave their cell phones on. Written for violin and double bass, the two instruments mine a wide range of astringent material from the ring motif, with emphasis on harmonics and partials, often evoking Baroque models in a quasi-passacaglia form. Currier’s substantial working out is typically smart and individual, with much contrast in the conversational back and forth." - Chicago Classical Review |
Program Note
I've always found ringtones quite intriguing. Not the ones which play known tunes, but the ones that are very elemental, not really music, just signs made out of sound. In some ways, Ringtone Variations resembles a set of Baroque variations like a passacaglia or a chaconne, but instead of the variations being based on a bass line or series of chords, it's based on simple ringtone, like one might hear on any cell phone. Back in the 18th century if one heard a passacaglia one would probably recognize the bass pattern and I wanted something common, familiar and ubiquitous to base my variations on too. I like the exaggerated simplicity of a ringtone: there's some short figure, which is then repeated. What could be simpler! The piece unfolds through a series of variations of this simple structure. There are however, interruptions to the flow, short, often contapuntal, passages where the violin and bass interact in a musical dialogue akin to conversation. Most concerts these days begin with an announcement to turn off your cell phone. Ringtone Variations might be one of the only pieces where the occasional ringer left on would fit right in with the music unfolding on stage! The piece is commissioned by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Stiftung and dedicated to Anne-Sophie Mutter. |
Scoring
for violin and double bass (solo tuning)
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.
World Premiere
6/6/2013 National Concert Hall, Taipei
Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin / Roman Patkoló, double bass
for violin and double bass (solo tuning)
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.
World Premiere
6/6/2013 National Concert Hall, Taipei
Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin / Roman Patkoló, double bass