Bruno Mantovani

Streets

The desire to write Streets surfaced in May 2005, while I was walking through the streets of New York. The density of simultaneous human activity was such that it was almost impossible for me to isolate either the movement of one person chosen randomly within that collective, or the particular movement of a vehicle, without having that information disturbed by many other things. The perception of that universe, composed of infinite strata, could be resumed as a whole tending paradoxically toward stasis.It is this phenomenon that I tried to transcribe in Streets, with the most animated and virtuosic passages being in fact those where listening evolves the least. Within an extremely limited harmonic context (the whole piece is based on a single chord), the discourse alternates between frenetic moments and periods in which calm is not synonymous with stasis. Influenced by what could be considered as 'granular synthesis' as in the electronic music realm, I also tried to establish gradual transformations of identifiable elements into accumulative textures. Streets was a real compositional challenge for me, in the extent to which I excluded any juxtaposition while trying to preserve the energy of my writing style through a conception of form more directional than was customary. The challenge also influenced other aspects: I limited myself to a brief form (about fifteen minutes) when at the time that I wrote the work, I was more accustomed to imposing lengths (my opera, composed just before this piece, lasts two hours and thirty minutes), I chose to use a smaller ensemble (since 2001, I had been concerned only with chamber music or large orchestral works), and more incidentally, I wanted within the form, to create the setting for an energetic ending, something I had not done for many years. Streets, thus marks a radical re-evaluation of my language. This work is dedicated to Pierre Boulez.Bruno Mantovani