Blockflöte (Saâ )

Composer's Notes

Saâ was commissioned by the city of Cologne for the recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger, to whom the piece is also dedicated. The premiere took place as part of the concert program of Dorothee Oberlinger and her baroque ensemble "Ensemble 1700" in the concert "Repeat it!" as part of the "zamus: early music festival" in Cologne.

The composition was inspired by the film "The Snow Leopard", which describes French nature photographer Vincent Munier's search to find and photograph the rare snow leopard in the high Tibetan mountains. Saâ is the name of the snow leopard in Tibetan.

The composition is written for soprano, sopranino, alto, tenor, bass recorder and baroque ensemble, which is to be understood as a kind of bourdon. The instrumentation of the ensemble is strings (small string orchestra or string quintet), lute and harpsichord. The strings can be played on baroque or also on modern instruments.

Saâ consists of alternating different musical elements, which can be interpreted as dialogues or as an action-reaction dynamic between recorder and ensemble. Sometimes the ensemble comments on the recorder with a sound surface and sometimes with a suspenseful crackling noise, which evokes the varied moods of the piece.   

Different melodies with rhythms from 4/4 to 10/8 are played alternately on the various recorders and a variety of sounds are also created. Until the end, there is a rapid alternation of sound relaxation and tension in the interplay between recorder and ensemble.