Julien-François Zbinden

Alligun op. 69

Mircea Saulesco commissionned Alligun for his well-known quartet. This one movement work includes an Introduction, Allegro, Berceuse and Coda. The Introduction features crashing dissonant chords. The allegro begins with a 4 voice fugato that leads to a more lyrical passage in which the chords of the introduction interact several times as the first part concludes, and evolves into the second part. Surprising coïncidence: Mircea Saulesco informed me that my Berceuse was a similar to the melody of a romanian berceuse which of course, something of which I was unaware. Alligun is an anagram of the first name of Mircea's spouse, Gunilla, to whom the work is dedicated . The piece was premiered by the Saulesco Quartet at the Wennergren Center in Stockholm on December 12th, 1984.

Julien-François Zbinden