AMEDEA-VISAGE DE JEUNE FILLE BY KRYŠTOF MAŘATKA
Set work for the Competition Final
World premiere
For the Competition Final, Vibre ! has commissioned a quartet from Kryštof Mařatka.
This piece, lasting about ten minutes, will be performed by the three Competition finalists.
Note statement of intent
In his string quartet AMEDEA-visage de jeune fille, the composer Kryštof Mařatka draws on his artistic credo ‘origINnovation’: to draw inspiration from the universal principles of the past and link them to contemporary creation.
During a retrospective exhibition of the painter Modigliani (1884-1920) , the composer was fascinated by the whole of his work and particularly by the painting Visage de jeune fille; he realised that the painter’s work drew on principles similar to those he used in his music: combining universal archaic techniques with contemporary processes. His quartet is fundamentally inspired by this artistic conviction and, as with Modigliani, there is this fascinating mix of past and present.
In music, the string quartet embodies the expression of a most ‘intimate’ musical intention; Modigliani, on the other hand, paints the intimate mainly through the human figure, and Kryštof Mařatka is inspired by one of his portraits in which he questions our own existence through the prism of the contemplatio n esseulée d’un simple visage de l’autre. Reflet de l’humanité à travers une tête de femme.
AMEDEA-visage de jeune fille is inspired by an eternal source for artists: love, women and passion, with musical icons such as Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, Janáček’s Kreutzer Sonata and Berg’s Lyric Suite in mind. e à Kreutzer by Janáček or Berg’s Lyric Suite.
Written both for a competition for young quartets and as a concert piece for a contemporary string quartet, the work AMEDEA-visage de jeune fille opens the doors for young ensembles to new creative experiences, new techniques and challenges of performing a work never heard before. On the other hand, through its spirit and its language, the quartet has the requirement of a personal, autonomous work, going beyond a competition test. Modigliani-Mařatka, two artists who come ‘from elsewhere’, with their own language and culture, and who draw in France, and mainly in Paris, this inspiration of a multicultural artistic effervescence coming from the whole world; two artists who never renounce their roots, while being immersed in their art and an open, francophone and free cosmopolitan universe.
