Murat Çolak is a Turkish boy who studies at Boston University. He is often seen in Europe, as is the case for many composers with USA training.
NEFES.PAS.ÇIRA.IŞI is a piece for flute and percussion from 2015. It is very simple: at the beginning, a high-pitched sound held for a long time, long enough to appreciate the transformations of its quality; then a series of dry percussion sounds over a low sound (a small interrupted apocalypse); then sighs over a scraped texture; finally "a song sung alone," as the composer writes. The sounds are beautiful, and we are granted the necessary time to savor them. I like it because I know I wouldn't be able to do something like that.
Composed for and premiered by Christian Smith (crotales/prepared bass drum/prepared bass marimba/prepared singing bowl) and Rosa Soler (piccolo/bass flute/floor castanet/sine tones) in 2015 at impuls festival - Graz, Austria.
Compared to other proposals, I find this piece to be truly very cold.
It is always a pleasure to engage with the ideas and impressions of others, even if they are diametrically opposed to one's own. One always learns something. For example, I would never have thought of coldness as an attribute of this piece. It is not my impression, though—for all that it's worth. On the contrary, it seems to me that there is a great adherence to sound, a true taste for sound: certainly, a sparse sound, made of few things, like a simple dish but prepared with taste, and savored with gusto both by the composer and by the performer—if that is the case, it is no small thing.
Sooner or later I will write a brief consideration on "pieces of this type," because I listened to this one in particular some time ago but had forgotten to comment on it.
In any case, I like these compositions for (let's say) solo instrument, precisely because they suggest a more introspective perception and are less focused on the search for something new at all costs, or something "sensational."
I constantly have a feeling inside me that partly goes hand in hand with what you expressed RedScharlach, but also contrasts (though I don't know if it is the same thing for you, i.e., the same reason why you say you wouldn't be able to write a piece like this) with this statement: they do not seem like impossible pieces to write to me, but they can (for me) be conceived and written by someone who (I hypothesize, but it is not certain) has a certain relationship with music (which is obviously not necessarily one-sided); in practice, they manage to transpose from themselves to the score what they are, still hypothesizing: a calm, reflective, non-impulsive person.
The reasons why I feel I wouldn't be able to write something similar have nothing to do with the studies I did not pursue, but precisely with the necessity (which must nonetheless respond to a minimum of musical taste) of having to expose one's own temperament, which as far as I am concerned is impulsive even if fascinated by reflection, nervous even if I need a sense of peace that I cannot find.
Pieces like this, extracting their most subtle, calm points and in my opinion promoters of reflection, have on me (but not always) that effect of peace that I need.
As far as the correspondence between who one is and what one does is concerned, I don't know what to tell you. It is certainly a complex issue. We are inclined to imagine Beethoven's personality based on his music, which overall presents extreme situations across the entire spectrum of possibilities: ferocity and sweetness, impulsivity and reflectivity. It could be so, but I don't know if it is correct. On the contrary, I find it difficult to relate Stravinsky (based on the idea I have formed of him through his statements, his photos, and his work as a whole) as directly to The Rite of Spring. I do not know Murat Çolak personally: I heard him speak once, only once, and I was struck by a remarkable irony – a combination of acumen and sensitivity.
Regarding the impossibility, or at least the difficulties I would find in writing similar music: perhaps what I lack, and what I admire, is the sense of anticipation – an anticipation built with poor, minimal elements. Anticipation seems to me to be the main signifier of the piece. All this makes sense because after the anticipation there is actually something – something that sounds to me like the remains of an ancient, imposing monument half-covered by the sands of time (another metaphor!). In short, I cannot isolate, as it seems you are proposing, the most tenuous and calm moments from the most visceral ones. Perhaps the whole thing is all too linear, but I appreciate this direct way of expressing oneself, especially because in the end it succeeds in reconstructing the anticipation, without giving it a resolution, without closing it, simply moving away from it with great slowness.
I will read your other considerations on "pieces of this type" with interest!
Reading the word "sense" after the word "expectation", I thought of a lecture (but not only on that occasion, he constantly speaks of this "connection") in which Galimberti (for those who do not know him, he is a philosopher) speaks about how science, according to him, is actually much more linked to religion than one might think, because the three phases that in Christianity are called sin, redemption, and eternal life, in science can be summarized as ignorance, research, and progress.
In effect, many of the things that are done and said find a match in this configuration (which I agree with).
I wanted to make this premise (much longer than what follows) because in music, sense is of extreme importance, and very superficially, sometimes the search for a "foothold" (the typical point of reference), so that at the moment a composition proves to be functional (as well as pleasant) and endowed (according to some, but it is not law) with sense, besides not leaving one perplexed, it goes on constituting that path to which I have briefly alluded, but musically speaking: idea, development, and completed sense.
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Natan
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Reply 7 by Natan
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Let's say that the concept of waiting can also work, but if then little to nothing happens and it moves away with great slowness, the risk that the piece becomes a long and boring wait on a cold winter evening at the airport is very high. Let's say that I feel this piece a bit frozen, as if it just came out of a freezer... despite re-listening and reading the comments, honestly little has influenced or changed my first impression. However, I found the comments very useful for providing an interpretation of the composer's probable intentions; the vanity of waiting can be an interesting concept.... but the result is very boring. Just my opinion, as I am nobody
Certainly! It is not my job, after all, to convince someone of anything. However, one word you use strikes me: risk. This is also something that I personally admire and envy: the courage to take the risk of four minutes in which "little and nothing" happens, as you say – of course, the judgment on this "little and nothing" is diametrically opposed in our case. Patience! I know many people who get bored listening to J.S. Bach's Cantatas!
Thinking back, however, to the final part of the piece, I correct my course. The "fades away with great slowness" is indeed reversed: no more waiting. Again a very gradual passage, but this time truly resolutive, definitive.
