česky

The boldness

for soprano, 3 violas, pecussion (vibraphono, triangle, cymbal, tam-tam) and harp, durata 11 min., 1999

The boldness

You had a desire to write a poem ages ago,
so simple and transparent to be
invisible,
it does nobody any trouble, but it might
be read by the Angel! And you were thinking
what such a poem should be sung about,
no matter what is about,
but it would have to be so simple and transparent
to be invisible…

   (Vladimír Holan)

I wanted to compose music based on this text, whose simplicity and transparent would be in line with „the invisible“ poem. It is not because it would be inaudible (in spite of the fact that here and there – nearly it is). It is caused by its different features, which is similar to Einstein´s term „Dwell time motion“. This term means for example this situation: a man is driving a car and the other car is going next to it in the same direction and at the same speed. In case that a man sitting in the car follows the other one, it seems to him that the car is standing even if that it is moving, in fact.

In music, I wanted to express this idea in this way: I had an intention the music to have in its content the same quantity of information along all duration of the composition. In other words – the tension included in the music should be satisfactory and it should not exceed the listener´s natural need of tension in music. The result ought to be music without action, programme and it should only express the state. The only thing that is little changed in this state, is the intensity of perception.

With a little boldness, we can tell more about this idea – music expressing a constant state all this time, can bring deformatin of relation between physical and psychological time, which is in. Physical time (the duration of the composition), which is 11 minutes, can not be accelerated, slowed down or stopped. I am convinced that one can more work with the psychological time. Consequently, my aim was to lead the listener to lose the notion of time. But, if I thought that I mamaged to meet my aim and that my music works in this way to everybody, it would be really „the boldness“…