Composer: Trevor Bača.
Forces: cello.
Duration: 9 minutes.
Page 6 of Traiettorie inargentate (2013) for cello.
Watch a video of the premiere by Séverine Ballon
Program note (English)
The complexes of ice locked in orbit about Saturn circumscribe the planet both forward and back relative to the direction of planet’s rotation. The aftereffects of the planet’s formation and the dynamics of its still-uncounted moons combine to determine the vagaries of the paths followed by the millions of particles comprising the planet’s rings. What silvery halo must illuminate the passing of even the smallest of these pieces of frozen sky? What sky-bound brilliance must be locked into the equatorial plane of the planet cutting through the otherwise space-dark expanse of its nights? (Bača)
Program note (French)
Les complexes de glace enfermés en orbit autour de Saturne circonscrivent la planète à la fois vers l'avant et en arrière par rapport à la direction de la rotation de la planète. Les séquelles de la formation de la planète et la dynamique de ses lunes — toutes non encore décomptées — se combinent pour déterminer les aléas des trajectoires suivies par les millions de particules compaosant les anneaux de la planète. Quel halo argenté doit éclairer le passage du moindre de ces morceaux de ciel glacé ? Quel éclat à destination du ciel doit être piégé dans le plan équatorial de la planète qui couple à travers l'étendue de ses nuits autrement sombre comme l'espace ? (Tr: Cécile Huin.)
Program note (German)
Die im Orbit des Saturn eingeschlossenen Eiskomplexe umrunden den Planeten sowohl in als auch entgegen seiner Rotationsrichtung. Die Nachwirkungen der Formation des Planeten sowie die Dynamik seiner nach wie vor ungezählten Monde wirken zusammen, um die launenhaften Pfade jener millionenfachen Partikel zu bestimmen, welche seine Ringe bilden. Welch silberner Schein muss das Vorüberziehen selbst des kleinsten Stückes gefrorenen Himmels erleuchten? Welch himmlischer Glanz wohl in der Äquatorebene des Planeten eingeschlossen ist, die die ansonsten tiefschwarze Weite seiner Nächte durchschneidet? (Ubs. Florian Hollerweger.)
Further notes
Scordatura. String IV must be tuned from C2 down a minor third to A1. (Strings I, II, III are tuned to A3, D3, G2 as per usual.) All pitches in the score are written as they sound.
Bow position tablature. The score comprises two staves. The top staff is notated in a type of bow position tablature that specifies which part of the bow is to touch the string at which time. Bow position indicators are given as fractions between 0 and 1 with 0 indicating the talon and 1 indicating the point; intermedial values indicate a position somewhere between the two. For example, the fractions 0/4 → 1/4 → 2/4 indicate that the bow is to be drawn smoothly from the talon (0/4) to a spot one quarter of the way from the talon (1/4) and finally to exactly the midway point of the bow (2/4); the fractions 6/7 → 7/7 → 0/7 indicate that the bow is to be drawn smoothly from a point just before the point (6/7) up to the point (7/7) and then all the way down to the talon (9/7). This type of tablature allows for the specification of any point along the compass of the bow and for the specification of any type of travel of the bow between these points. But the bow positions used in the present piece are all taken from values that divide the bow evenly into four (0/4, 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4) or seven (0/7, 1/7, 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, 6/7, 7/7) parts. The values 0/4 and 0/7 are synonyms for the talon just as the values 4/4 and 7/7 are synonyms for the point.
Bow color indications. An important feature of the piece is the alternation between sections of music specified using the bow position tablature described above and sections of music specified using textual bow color indications instead. These two systems of specification both result in changes of bow color throughout the piece even though the color changes are conceptualized in two different ways. The usual contact of hair to string is indicated with crine while the tilting the bow to allow both hair and wood to touch the string is indicated with 1/2 clt. Degrees of scratch tone (gridato) are indicated in parallel to degrees of flautando. Indications of gridato and flautando refer to bow speed. Do not substitute sul tasto playing for the different degrees of bow speed flautando required in the piece.
Dynamics. Sometimes the bow position tablature described above will produce very fast or very slow motions of the bow. When this is the the case it may not be possible to effect the accompanying dynamic in the usual way. Dynamics in such passages are to be interpreted as “effort dynamics” that indicate the amount of downward pressure applied to the string independently of bow speed.
First performances
World premiere given by Séverine Ballon on 4 October 2013 at the Conservatoire nationale supérieur in Lyon, France.
German premiere given by Séverine Ballon on 2 September 2014 at Unerhörte Musik in Berlin, Germany.
South American premiere given by Séverine Ballon on 13 September 2014 at the Matrix Composition Courses in Curitiba, Brazil.
US premiere given by Gregory Rowland Evans on 29 February 2016 at Experimental House Concerts in Cincinnati, Ohio.