Briefly:
Dämmerung is a true odyssey of sound and drama. It is the exploration of a new piano, transformed through various preparations and enhanced by an electronic device that literally turns it into a speaker. The work is the result of a collaboration lasting several years between the French-Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia and the 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:
The prepared piano is a piano that is modified by adding various objects and materials (screws, coins, patafix, pieces of rubber, etc.) on or between the strings of the instrument. This process was invented in the 1940s by the American composer John Cage. This developed into an exciting repertoire that Cédric Pescia has been playing for many years.
After learning Cage's methods of preparation, Kevin Juillerat developed his own techniques - with different objects, placed in different ways. The different types of preparation create zones with different harmonies and timbres that 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 scattered. This creates an extraordinary mixture of timbres and homogeneity. These sounds were created from prepared piano samples - transformed, stretched or enriched. By playing with apparent resonances, false resonances, sound halos and textures, acoustic and electronic sounds merge into a constantly flowing and organic material.
Dämmerung:
The title Dämmerung refers to an “in-between” and an uncertain state of transition. A music between light and shadow. A piano that is not a real piano, whose tones are altered by the preparation and the unreal sounds of the electronics that run through it. But also the circumstances surrounding the composition of the piece: on the one hand, Berlin, where it was written, a city that has experienced a lot of change over the course of history (Second World War, the Wall, reunification, extreme neoliberalism, etc.); and on the other hand, 2020, the year in which 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