Mask
for ensemble and soundtrack (2006)
musikFabrik
In Mask, musical layers are covered and revealed. Overtone 'masks' in the soundtrack transform the colour of the notes in the instrumental ensemble, shifting the sound texture. The acoustic material played by the ensemble is manipulated and snipped apart in the soundtrack. The musical layers within the ensemble and soundtrack overlap one another; sudden interruptions rip a hole in the texture, revealing previously concealed layers.
A percussionist obsessively pulls gaffer tape from a table surface, causing the ensemble to react with manic outbursts. As an old-fashioned metronome, operated by the percussionist, gradually becomes muffled, the soundtrack slowly robs the ensemble's sound of its overtones.
Mask is commissioned by Kunststiftung NRW, Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst and Casa da Música, Porto.
Premiered by musikFabrik, the ASKO Ensemble and the Remix Ensemble.
Press:
"With 'Mask' Michel van der Aa once again proves his craftsmanship... Van der Aa succeeds in imbuing his music with a remarkably individual, purely emotional quality...clarity of form, maximum use of a small amount of material, mastery of form and a keen sense of timing and effect: these are all present and accounted for."
— De Telegraaf
"Effective new piece by Michel van der Aa"
"...an electronic layer flows along with the sound of the ensemble, creating strange mixtures...an effective piece that, thanks to a buildup of small climaxes, moves towards a supreme moment, followed, like a coda, by a series of gradually thinning chords with dazzling harmonic spectra. "
— De Volkskrant
"Passionate music of Michel van der Aa"
— De Standaard
"Balanced between experimentation and the senses"
— La Libre