In brief:
Dämmerung is a true odyssey of sound and drama. It is an exploration of a new piano, transformed by various preparations and enhanced by an electronic device that literally turns it into a loudspeaker. The work is the result of several years of collaboration between French-Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia and Swiss composer Kevin Juillerat. It was written in 2020 during a 6-month artist residency in Berlin and premiered on May 20, 2022, in Lausanne (CH).
Prepared piano:
A prepared piano is a piano that has been altered by adding various objects and materials (screws, coins, Blu-Tack, pieces of rubber, etc.) to or between the strings of the instrument. This technique was invented in the 1940s by the American composer John Cage. This led to the development of an exciting repertoire that Cédric Pescia has been playing for many years.
After learning about Cage's methods of preparation, Kevin Juillerat developed his own techniques—using different objects and placing them in different ways. The different types of preparation create zones with different harmonies and timbres, which are explored throughout the piece: a long journey from noisy and distorted sounds to the ordinary sound of the few remaining unprepared notes.
Electronics:
The preparation is complemented by an electronic device that enables a further level of metamorphosis of the instrument. Transducers are installed in the piano: these small contact speakers are glued to the soundboard, through which all electronic sounds are filtered and diffused. This creates an extraordinary mixture of timbres and homogeneity. These sounds were generated from prepared piano samples—transformed, stretched, or enriched. In this way, acoustic and electronic sounds merge through the play of apparent resonances, false R
Dämmerung:
The title Dämmerung refers to an “in-between” and an uncertain state of transition. Music between light and shadow. A piano that is not really a piano, whose tones are altered by the preparation and the unreal sounds of the electronics that permeate it. But also the circumstances of the composition of the piece: on the one hand, Berlin, where it was written, a city that has undergone many changes throughout history (World War II, the Wall, reunification, extreme neoliberalism, etc.); and on the other hand, 2020, the year it was written, which was heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic—a strange time of waiting for a hoped-for return to normality or a hypothetical change in our society.
Kevin Juillerat