NODUS 2
Nodus 2 is part of a cycle of solo pieces with and without electronic devices (Ombre 1 for cello and electronics, Ombre 2 for clarinet and electronics, Eleistä for 6 cellos and electronics., Nodus 1 for clarinet solo, Nodus 2 for cello solo). These works were written at the request of outstanding contemporary musicians. Nodus 2 was written for Anssi Karttunen.
In the two works (Nodus 1 and Nodus 2), the instrumental situations of the tempi, speed, registers and density are developed in a predetermined way. A string of tempi, from the slowest to the fastest, frames the actions that arise in the work.
However the general density does not strictly correspond to this frame of tempi. The changes take place locally in a process that I call a « knot », as a knot becomes clear once it is untied. While it is tied, it remains mysterious. Both pieces are « virtuoso », not only instrumentally, but also in the almost permanent tension of their form.
D. Cohen