< > poco espr. (2003)
For clarinet soloLa Belle Choc (2003)
David Kweksilber
For a composer with a love-hatred relationship to deadlines (they always come too early), composing with a knife to one's throat is the ultimate challenge. On the invitation of Kees Hillen, <> poco espr. was written in oktober 2003 in only two hours time in the basement of Vredenburg in Utrecht. Meantime, the grand hall upstairs was filled with audience, awaiting clarinettist David Kweksilber to come up and present the result. The score was divided over eight music stands, scattered around the hall.
By now, these hastily scribbled seperate leaflets are transformed into one, ten meters long score that almost literally shows the lapse of time during a performance.
Instrumentation II: alto-saxophone
Duration: ± 10 minutes
Length of the score: 10 meters
First performance: 8 september 2003 during 'Day of the Chamber Music' in Vredenburg in Utrecht
Written for: David Kweksilber
Commissioned by: De Kamervraag
Reviews: "The young composer Mayke Nas wrote a short solo piece for David in two hours as a finale to the day. It didn't only result in a beatiful piece, but she also incorporated theatrical elements, inspired by the architecture of the grand hall in Vredenburg. Before a breathless audience, Kweksilber played the piece - with the working title Eyes Closed - very convincingly, walking from one music stand to the other. A historical event, because the practice to play such 'fresh' notes brings us back to the days of Mozart."
(De Kamervraag Nieuwsbrief nr. 18, september 2003)
"The concert began with Nas' < >poco espr., a solo for clarinet that required Michel Marang to walk from right to left slowly along the score that was stretched across the whole width of the stage. Sometimes he played long lines, spacious notes for which he had to squeeze the last air out of his lungs, sometimes he played multiphonics, or fast sequences of notes that reminded of the singing of birds."
(René van Peer in Brabants Dagblad, 13 januari 2005)