Bozzini Quartet: Jürg Frey

Program Notes

Jürg Frey
Continuité, fragilité, résonance (2020–21)

I had already written three quarters of the piece when I came across this text by Gaston Bachelard: “Successive notes then no longer sing but remain in the qualitative and quantitative discontinuity in which they are produced. Sensations are not connected; it is our soul that connects them…. Continuity does not belong to the melodic line itself. What gives this line consistency is an emotion more vague and viscous than sensation is. Music’s action is discontinuous; it is our emotional resonance that gives it continuity.”

And the title of the piece takes that up: Continuité is the continuity in timeline. Fragilité says this timeline is not a given fact. In this piece, the musicians often play individual, isolated notes. But these individual notes have the potential to generate a context. And with Résonance, time goes in different directions, also backward, or vertically. Résonance means, above all, the emotional and musical cohesion within the entire ensemble.

In my work, I am constantly dealing with such elements that are outside. I write it in my sketchbook, and I write it again, on another side, and I begin to understand what it means in this or that context, but as a single, isolated item, it can be anything and nothing. I place it more inside or outside the musical flow and it can develop energies to give the piece direction or the opposite (it could get stuck, balancing in the air close to standstill before it goes on again). Or it could stand completely still. I consider this as an important emotional aspect in my music, which has a central influence on the formal shape.