Katerina Stamatelos

http://www.last.fm/music/Katerina+Stamatelos/Album+No.1/+wiki  

If you are unfamiliar with the work of Stamatelos the nocturnes are a wonderful introduction to her work. Let me offer a brief description of no.1. The piece is an A B A’ form for cello and piano. It opens with solo cello weaving a long, languorous low register line which swells from pp to an anticlimactic pause at mf. To some degree the writing is reminiscent of Messiaen yet more subdued and less impressionistic. Enter piano in gentle harmonies around a steady axis pedal point in a neutral rhythmic setting. It will be accompanied by cello in a tremolo sul ponticello gesture in blatant disregard of its earlier melodic role. However, our composer is wise and realizes that history will not be so easily negated. In a fitting move the cello is returned to its station yet is not made to do so gently. The struggle that began so inconspicuously at the beginning of the movement is now clearly made manifest in the strained tones of the high register A string. 
The forces of conciliation and rejection that had previously been distinct are now made to collide in the movements B section. There is no longer a clear separation of melody and accompaniment. Each character struggles and is by turn a variable amalgam of aggressor and subdued. Gestures are recalled, transformed but never negated. Stamatelos understands full well that she must honor the integrity of each if the struggle is to have meaning.
The closing section of the work is a returning in appropriately Nietzschean fashion. Origins are briefly recalled but never literally, avoiding any sense of nostalgia. It is a quiet affirmation of the necessity of struggle for the realization of the work of art. 

A wonderful work!
Edited by fpc4on 6 Oct 2009, 14:47