PRESS PLAY Episode 59: Diapason

April 10, 2024
Diapason* (2024)

Olivier St-Pierre (CA), composer

HATCH 2024 Ensemble
Jordana Kleiner, flute / bass flute
Cheng Cheng, clarinet / bass clarinet
Joelle Crigger, violin
Samantha Yang, cello
Carina Shum, piano
Britton-René Collins, percussion
Kelly Lin, conductor

* world premiere

Programme Note

The piece is titled Diapason, which means ‘tuning fork’, as it focuses mainly on the idea of tuning. In the beginning of the piece, for instance, one can hear repeated chords, whose intonation and rhythmic profile vary slightly from one repetition to the other, as though the instruments were constantly retuning, looking for a common diapason. The piece revolves around three modulation sections, in which the cellist is asked to tune to difference tones, ghostly low notes resulting from the interference between the pitches played by the two woodwind instruments, which might be experienced as a feeling of in-ear buzzing. The retuned cello strings are then used to produce beatings, periodic fluctuations of sound intensity, which serve as rhythmic cues for the conductor to modulate to new metronome markings. The piece thus aims to bring both players and listeners to delve deep into the sound and listen to the ‘sound within the sound’, paying attention to minute acoustic phenomena. In this way, tuning becomes a metaphor for listening itself, listening to each other and searching for each other.

Kelly Lin appears courtesy of Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership program.