Prisme

"Prisme " for solo violin, arose out of "... prismes / incidences... " (1998) for violin and orchestra, a woks which was also premiered by the soloist Hae-Sun Kang. It was written specially for this recording, which is thus its trust performance. Taking the opposite direction from Berio and his "Chemins, " Michael Jarrell here took the solo part of a concertante work and "isolated " it, as one might say, cutting off all communication with the orchestra. The violin is thus unceremoniously reduced to its own sound matter, but as this is complete in itself, such isolation, far from being a source of frustration, underlines the wealth of the instrument. On a first hearing, the listener may be struck by the various shifts of musical context that mark out the important moments of the work. These landmarks are linked to pitch (the composer integrates pole notes that support the music, such as the D at the start) or to the degree off animation and virtuosity. So the hearer perceives a progression of fairly long episodes that never really reveal a formal pattern, it is rather a question of looking next to the "prism " for its secondary definition, "seeing (or hearing) through a prism ": namely, the perception of a reality that is here deformed by a subtle play on the elements that compose sound. Michael Jarrell is the perfect master of colours, dynamics, registers and playing techniques (which are particularly refined in terms of harmonics), and he succeeds in using these new but very expressive means to create an entire imaginary perspective where the instrument simply opens up new paths.