Scratching Memories (2020)

for piano

Duration: 4'

written for Mathilde Hoursiangou

Commission: Scratching Memories was commissionned by the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, for the project Saiten-Tasten, Innenraumstudien für das andere Klavier (touching strings, studies for inside piano techniques) by Mathilde Hoursiangou, kindly supported by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung and the SKE/Fonds austro mechana.

Premiere: 20 August 2021 - Impuls Festival, Graz

Mathilde Hoursiangou © Markus Bruckner

Scratching Memories opens with a scratching exploration of the string-board, from which clusters of harmonic sounds emerge in a rhythmic structure that combines fragile resonances of muffled sounds and percussive gestures. The metamorphosis of the opening elements expands the gesturality of the player until building a rich and changing texture that integrates the physicality enacted inside the instrument with fragments played on the keyboard.