»à Harald Ossberger et son Concordia Trio«

For piano, violin, and cello
Premiere: 1994, Odessa, played by Harald Ossberger, René Staar, und Rafael Flieder
Duration: ca. 14 minutes
Score: ECA Nr. 73008
Available through:
Edition Contemp Art (Verlagsgruppe Hermann)
Goldschmiedgasse 10, A-1010 Wien
E-mail: sales{at}hermann.eu | tel: +43 / 1 / 534 62 40 | Fax: +43 / 1 / 534 62 67

Short introduction
The fundamental musical material of the work is a harmonic chain of various interval combinations consisting of three-voice chords, layered over a cantus firmus taken from the Kyrie of the Messe de Notre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377), master of the so-called Ars nova. This harmonic chain however never appears in its original form and is never run through in its original succession. It is instead divided into 4 x 6 sections of differing lengths. The same harmonic chain is used four times, each time with a different distribution, each of these always in six sections. When one represents the four possible ways of utilizing the harmonic chain with the letters A–D and the section distributions with the numbers 1–6 it looks like this:

These sections of varying lengths, which sometimes overlap, are combined and put together in the following manner:

Development and reprise are therefore not built out of motives or thematic groups, but are rather differentiated only through different distributions of the harmonic chain.
But these are just the split atoms out of which various individual physiognomies develop. In the exposition and reprise the divisions are presented in pairs, whereby two segments are synchronously juxtaposed, one played by the piano, the other by the violin and cello, in the following manner:

Due to its completely individual physiognomy, the reprise would give the impression of being another exposition, were it not for the intercalated development, which freely combines the 12 thematic complexes (for example D1+D2) of the exposition and reprise. This development section generally dispenses with fresh elaborations, in order to avoid further ramifications of the already complex structure. It has the effect of a reprise and also of an exposition, since elements from these sections are either recalled or anticipated.
The Sonata form disappears into a ternary structure, where evolutions occur within small segments and large-scale coherence results from the continuous permutation of the combinations. The short coda hints at a new evolution, an evolution that lacks the time and space to unfold.
The work was composed between November 1982 and February 1984 in Geneva, upon the suggestion of Harald Ossberger and the Concordia Trio.