David Tudén
SITE Zones intervjuer med tonsättare: David Tudén.
Vad är komponerandets villkor idag? Vad innebär traditionen, vilka material och tekniker finns tillgängliga?
Kamera och produktion: Juan-Pedro Fabra Guemberena
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Durata: ca 11’00’’
Score in C
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Flute 1
Flute 2
Oboe 1
Oboe 2
Clarinet 1 in Bb
Bass clarinet 2
Bassoon 1
Bassoon 2 (alt. contrabassoon)
Horn 1 in F
Horn 2 in F
Horn 3 in F
Horn 4 in F
Trumpet 1 in C
Trumpet 2 in C
Trumpet 3 in C
Trombone 1
Trombone 2
Bass trombone
Tuba
Timpani
Percussion 1
- Tubular bell, a1 detached
- Bucket or similar containing water (for water gliss on tubular bell)
- Lion’s roar
- Matches and candle
Percussion 2
- Vibraphone (with bow)
- Matches and candle
- Thai gongs (see ’’notation’’)
Percussion 3
- Marimba
- Anvil
- Matches and candle
Harp
Strings
12– 10 – 8 – 6 – 4
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The english translation to the alchemical manuscript Hermes Unveiled is prefaced by a translator’s note which reads as follows:
”The man known as Cyliani, of whom little is known personally, write the present volume in 1831 and had it published the year after. Its main interest lies in the fact that he influenced a school of french alchemysts who based their work on his findings. The first of these was G. F. Tifferau who brought a piece of gold from Mexico, which he claimed to have manufactured by the art. Tifferau spent years trying to persuade french scientists to take his work seriously, but only succeeded in stimulating the alchemysts such as Jollivet-Castellot and others. He complained that the sun in France was not as suitable to the work as that of Mexico.”
During the process of writing this piece for orchestra I have immersed myself in the fascinating tradition of western alchemy. With the great help and alchemical expertise of Christer Böke I have reworked the material principles and steps described in Hermes Unveiled into a musicalized translation of the steps and procedures described as the first process in the work of producing the Philosopher’s stone. The piece contains a number of explicit symbolic actions related to the manuscript as well as the alchemical canon in general such as recitations of the (possibly apocryphical) axiom of Mary the Jewess, one of the first known alchemists:
”One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.”
The final recitation is taken from the last section of the first procedure in Cylianis manuscript. He there describes in a rather poetic manner the result of a long process in the following way:
”The matter is crushed, the water is entirely transformed into earth and this latter, through a process of dessication, changes itself into a white powder that we also call air. This falls like a cinder, containing the salt, or the Mercury of the Philosophers.’
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giftet fanns, lockelsen
i nanopartikelns irrfärd över
hjärnstammen
hjärtat, blodstrålen, andan mikrosömnen, vägfältet, att stillas
paus: Venuspassage
jordklotets skuggbanas
solfläck, förbiglidande
virvlande, magnetisk; vart hundrade års
magnetiska kraftfältsstörningar, kompass
kompassrosen fanns; det avläsbara
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Length: ca. 20’00 Score in C
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Soprano Saxophone (alto) Trombone (tenor)
Percussion 1
-Frame drum
-Matches and candle
-Cymbal (ride)
-Tam-tam
-Bass drum
-Crotales
-Vibraphone
Percussion 2
-Frame drum
-Matches and candle
-Glockenspiel
Piano Violin Viola
Double bass Recording (tape)
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Plumones in Utero (’’lungs in uterus’’) is built around an interpretation of the thoughts and theology of the scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Swedish poet and writer Pär Hansson is heard reading passages from Swedenborg’s ’’Drömboken’’ (the dream book) in the recorded part.
This private journal, originally never meant for publication, is considered a documentation of the start of Swedenborgs famous spiritual phase. The original texts has been translated into modern swedish by the composer. In the soprano part fragments of Swedenborg’s texts appears alongside excerpts from the roman poet Ovid’s (43BC-17AD) ’’Metamorphoses’’ (Swedish translation by Erik Bökman, Natur och kultur, 1998)
