Dystopia

for Double Wind Quintet

Prelude and Toccata • Double Wind Quintet • 2023
Grade 5 (difficult) • 08:40 • FC Music Publishing

Instrumentation : 2Fl, 2Ob, 2Cl, 2Hn, 2Bsn

In October 2018, I had the opportunity to accompany the Wind Band La Landwehr de Fribourg as an instrumentalist during a concert tour in India. Travel between the different cities was punctuated by the horns of the different vehicles on the road, which competed in creativity. Our bus was no exception to this rule, and I ended up letting myself be inspired by this five-note pattern which, through repetition, ended up anchoring itself deeply in my brain, until it served as a musical basis for this work.

Dystopia exploits the notion of duality: in two parts (I. Prelude and II. Toccata), the work uses the double wind quintet sometimes as a single entity, sometimes as two or three groups in constant rhythmic, harmonic or writing conflict. Like in a dystopia, where the hero constantly struggles against an oppressive society, the thematic group linked to motif A (that of the car horns, exposed at the beginning of the Prelude) confronts that linked to motif B (exposed at bar 25) throughout the piece. Similarly, the free form of the Prelude contrasts with the more defined structure of the Toccata where the atmospheres linked to the two thematic groups alternate. Two short episodes highlight a third motif, more arioso, serving as divertissement and rhythmic appeasement within the Toccata.

The composition was commissioned by the Swiss conductor Felix Hauswirth, on the occasion of the aVENTura festival in Lucerne in September 2023 dedicated to Swiss composers.