Scènes d’Anatolie
Year 2013
First performance November 22, 2013 (Antalya)
Instrumentation clarinet, cello, piano
Duration 14’
Score on demand
details
Dedicated to Antalya Piano Festival and to Fazıl SAY
Fazil Say is my oldest childhood friend. We spent seven years together at the Conservatoire of Ankara, from age 11 to 18, following the same courses with the same teachers. We played football together, went regularly to the Goethe Institute to raid its record collection, met at the home of poet, painter and composer Ertuğrul Oğuz Fırat who orga- nized listening sessions of contemporary music in his home. Then we spent nights talking. Turning to that time also means rediscovering my music of the time, the first small pieces I wrote between the ages of 11 and 13 and which I used here. Fazil wrote in a more learned way at the time; today he has freed himself from many rules, all the while remaining anchored in his history. Scènes d’Anatolie is a little mirror game with him. In it I also recount a train journey from west to east through Anatolia. My mother travelled a lot and took me with her on the night train: Ankara-Istanbul, Ankara-Izmir ... A journey could last up to 16 hours, during which we would hear the irregular rhythm of the wheels on the track, between a hellish tempo and sudden slowdowns when we pulled into a station. For each stopover, I evoked a different musical landscape of folk inspiration – melodic or lively like a ‘halay’ – until the final destination, the city of Muş (pronounced ‘mouche’) from which we hear a popular melancholic melody. Before the train started up again at breakneck speed towards the horizon...