Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Theodor Grigoriu
Cosmic Dream (1959)
(Vis Cosmic)- Editions Musicales Transatlantiques (World)
- 2+pic.2+ca.2+Alto Clarinet+bcl.2+cbn/4331/4perc+mba+vib+xyl+Bells/hp.pf+cel+org/24.0.8.8.8
- Voice (tenor) or electronic instrument with similar timbre
- 10 min
Programme Note
A counterpoint and transparency study, Cosmic Dream is conceived as a simultaneous development of two types of sound events:
- A determined one, in its paths, intervals, duration of sounds, timbres: cantus firmi (plural of cantus firmus) – paths have the shape of sound curves, oscillating between the low and the high registers, the duration of sounds being given by the intervals between them.
- A free one, stemming from a basic series, aiming to lend an expressive sense to the entire sound development.
- Theodor Grigoriu
The work was inspired by the launching of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, a great success of human scientific genius. The title of the work may be understood in an oneiric sense, but in fact it has the character of an austere, lucid meditation.
Quitting the routine of daily preoccupations, the composer subtitled his work A counterpoint and transparency study in order to point out the necessity to integrate more rapidly novel techniques and ideas in the personal creative progress, which is advancing at a slower pace.
The whole sound development in the work is, as shown above, an ample counterpoint movement between two ways of organizing melodic lines: a rigorous one and a free one, derived from a series of 12 sounds, which, together with the former, tends to create a more expressive resultant. The idea of this structure comes from the observation that, on a cantus firmus (basic melody), however dry, one or several superimposed lines may bring about and determine an expressive sense.
1. The introduction presents, in a static way, the structures to be laid at the basis of the work.
2. In the first section of the cantus firmi poem (made of three lines), he uses movements with large intervals (ninths and sevenths), and rough timbres; the proposed series with a counterpoint role is expounded recurrently.
3. In the second section, cantus firmi (made of four lines) uses medium intervals (fourths, fifths, sixths), the timbre loses some of its roughness, and the counterpoint-series is read directly. The sound discourse becomes less rebarbative, a tenor solo voice (vox humana) appears, which may be an electronic instrument too (Martenot waves), whose role is to enrich the expressivity of the other lines.
4. In the last section, cantus firmi (made of five lines) uses small intervals (seconds, thirds) distributed to strings with ascending movements, like a mobile scale, which becomes gradually simplified, ending in a single sound (C), the same from the beginning of the cantus firmi. Above this “mobile scale”, the basic series unfolds, treated chordically, chorally, with sounds arranged in a cluster of thirds. When everything clears away, vox humana appears.
Throughout the orchestral poem Cosmic Dream a series of elements are activated with decorative and suggestive functions, percussion and color instruments, which gradually pass from an amorphous expression to a crystallized one.
Knowing and understand cosmic phenomena, man carries on his destiny, which evinces his propensity to master them.
© Mihaela Marinescu
- A determined one, in its paths, intervals, duration of sounds, timbres: cantus firmi (plural of cantus firmus) – paths have the shape of sound curves, oscillating between the low and the high registers, the duration of sounds being given by the intervals between them.
- A free one, stemming from a basic series, aiming to lend an expressive sense to the entire sound development.
- Theodor Grigoriu
The work was inspired by the launching of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, a great success of human scientific genius. The title of the work may be understood in an oneiric sense, but in fact it has the character of an austere, lucid meditation.
Quitting the routine of daily preoccupations, the composer subtitled his work A counterpoint and transparency study in order to point out the necessity to integrate more rapidly novel techniques and ideas in the personal creative progress, which is advancing at a slower pace.
The whole sound development in the work is, as shown above, an ample counterpoint movement between two ways of organizing melodic lines: a rigorous one and a free one, derived from a series of 12 sounds, which, together with the former, tends to create a more expressive resultant. The idea of this structure comes from the observation that, on a cantus firmus (basic melody), however dry, one or several superimposed lines may bring about and determine an expressive sense.
1. The introduction presents, in a static way, the structures to be laid at the basis of the work.
2. In the first section of the cantus firmi poem (made of three lines), he uses movements with large intervals (ninths and sevenths), and rough timbres; the proposed series with a counterpoint role is expounded recurrently.
3. In the second section, cantus firmi (made of four lines) uses medium intervals (fourths, fifths, sixths), the timbre loses some of its roughness, and the counterpoint-series is read directly. The sound discourse becomes less rebarbative, a tenor solo voice (vox humana) appears, which may be an electronic instrument too (Martenot waves), whose role is to enrich the expressivity of the other lines.
4. In the last section, cantus firmi (made of five lines) uses small intervals (seconds, thirds) distributed to strings with ascending movements, like a mobile scale, which becomes gradually simplified, ending in a single sound (C), the same from the beginning of the cantus firmi. Above this “mobile scale”, the basic series unfolds, treated chordically, chorally, with sounds arranged in a cluster of thirds. When everything clears away, vox humana appears.
Throughout the orchestral poem Cosmic Dream a series of elements are activated with decorative and suggestive functions, percussion and color instruments, which gradually pass from an amorphous expression to a crystallized one.
Knowing and understand cosmic phenomena, man carries on his destiny, which evinces his propensity to master them.
© Mihaela Marinescu
Media
Discography
- LabelElectrecord
- Catalogue NumberECE 0211
- ConductorEmanuel Elenescu
- EnsembleOrchestra Simfonica A Radioteleviziunii
- SoloistIon Stoian, Tenor