Insula dulcamara

  • Year of composition: 2024

  • Instrumentation: oboe, viola & harp

  • Duration: 6' ca.

  • Premiere: 26th March 2024 at Illinois State University (USA) by Ensemble Dal Niente (Andrew Nogal, oboe; Ammie Brod, viola; Ben Melsky, harp) for RED NOTE New Music Festival

  • Program notes:

"Insula dulcamara" draws inspiration from one of the best-known paintings by Paul Klee – an eclectic painter and artist – and literally means "Bittersweet island": the fusion within the contrast, apparently paradoxical, is what permeates the entire piece. Three instruments very distant from each other (oboe, viola and harp), with their different timbres and colours, interact and attempt to merge, moving away and coming together along a line that keeps them distant but united. What are the boundaries at this point? Where is the difference between sea and land, in an island that tastes of sweetness but also of bitterness, and that questions sonic distances?