Cassiopeia (2002)
(for percussion solo and string orchestra)

Σ – Cassiopéia
for metallic percussion and string orchestra
(2002)

If one looks into the summer sky, one does not need very long to recognize the well known constellation of Cassiopeia. It´s form, similar to the Greek letter „Σ“ (Sigma) fascinated and accompanied me already during my childhood on Crete; still and at the same time mysterious. Distant from any earthly sound - as if it possessed its own world of music, this constellation has always carried a specific sound to me, a sound that in its nightly mood came into being there by itself. When I attempted to put this sound on paper, I did not need to search very long: a simple chord of four consecutive seconds (f, f- sharp, g-sharp, a- sharp b) seemed adequate to me.

The beautiful Cassiopeia „commanded“ of me, so to speak, the timbre of this music; an unusual mixture of metal and wood, warmth and cold, nearness and distance, light and dark.

When Peter Sadlo to (whom this work is dedicated in honor of his 40th birthday) told me in the autumn of 2001 about the commission from the Schloss Werneck Chamber Orchestra, it was immediately clear to me that this work could be nothing else than the composition of the sound already familiar to me. The timbre of the metallic percussion and the string orchestra formed an ideal combination for the realization of this music.

The beauty of the symmetry that can be recognized in this constellation led me to the tonal system that I employed here: the five stars become five tones. Two concurrent fifths (c-g, g-d) represent the three stars on the right side of the sign, the tons f-sharp and g-sharp the stars on the left side. These two harmonic and melodic elements, combined with highly virtuoso rhythmical passages and unusual performing techniques (the bowed vibraphone and cymbals for example) form the tonal material of this composition. A modal melody at the center of the work is played with a bow on the crotales. A dialogue with the past? A call from outer space? A homage to the beauty of Cassiopeia? An interruption of the violence in our time? A perception of the eternity?

Minas Borboudakis
May 2002